The Pizza Box Adventure
by Chiyo M. Matsuko
Summary: What is it like to get sucked into a story book? Chiyo and Maemi find out when Tasuki delivers their pizza...
1. The Celestial Pizza Boy of Suzaku

*Note* The following story (all chapters included) Is a work of fiction based on Yu Watase's manga story, Fushigi Yuugi.  
It is in no way meant to impose on her rights as an author/artist. The characters of Tasuki, Hotohori. Chichiri, Miaka, Tamahome  
Nuriko, Yui, Mitsukake, Chiriko, Taiiskun(I know that just has to be spelled wrong!) Lai-Lai, and all the other characters we know and love from FY, as well as the land of Konan  
and the city Eiyo, and Taikiyoku(another mispelling) Mountian belong to Yu Watase. The other characters and places(with the exception of Tokyo, Japan and Tadashi Suki, who   
belongs to Miriam, and Star'kev, who belongs to himself, Gods Preserve us)  
belong to me and Maemi-chan. Enjoy!  
  
  
  
Chapter One: The Celestial Pizza Boy of Suzaku  
  
Deep in the heart of Tokyo, Japan, there is a small, exclusive, private school for girls called Sumida Academy .   
Sumida Academy is the top school of its kind in the city, with an excellent academic and arts cirriculum, a competitive sports department, and an economically efficent school lunch program; not to mention really, really cute uniforms. In fact, there was only one bad spot to be found in all of Sumida Academy, and her name was   
Chiyo Mary Matsuko.  
Chiyo was a sixteen-year-old second year student. She was SA's all-star, record setting track team member, had and impressive 4.0 GPA, and actively participated in several of the school's volunteer youth programs. She also had broken the school's detention record, which had been set by fourth year student Michiko Meisuke in 1962.  
Chiyo Matsuko was currently sitting outside the head mistress' office with a red detention request in her lap and a school bag at her feet. She wasn't quite sure what she had done this time, but she was certain it was related to the fact that this was the sixth consecutive week she'd skipped her physical education class. She always had thought the swimming unit was a complete waste(the fact that she didn't know how to swim didn't encourage her attendance record, either). She also wasn't sure how she ended up in detention everyday. Okay, so maybe she did skip classes occasionally, and maybe she had started a few food fights in the cafeteria, but who hadn't? It wasn't like she was planting bombs or anything!  
Chiyo sighed. At least her parents knew where she was every day after school. She'd once tried to skip detention, but that had ended disaterously when her father had come home from a buisness trip early and decided to stop at the local burger joint for a quick, pre-homecoming meal.  
  
Ms. Keia Kuyami had been headmistress at Sumida Academy for thirty-three years, and she'd been a math teacher there before that. Ms. Kuyami felt a deep connection to the Academy. She herself had once walked SA's halls between classes, and so had her daughters, and in a few years, so would her granddaughters. Ms. Kuyami glanced out the door of her office, looked heavenward, and shook her head.   
It was ten thirty on a Friday morning, and Chiyo Matsuko was already sitting outside the office door with a detention request and a new, neon, plastisized outfit.  
In all her long, experienced years at SA, Ms. Kuyami had never, ever encountered a student like Chiyo Mary Matsuko. Not even the infamous Michiko Meisuke of '62.   
At least you couldn't see Meisuke coming a thousand miles away!  
Ms. Kuyami looked out the window of her office and sighed. How could she be expected to run a well disciplined school with a delinquent like that running rampant? It was such a shame that Matsuko was such a good student, and so important to the track team. In some ways, Matsuko was all that kept Sumida Academy above their biggest rival, Katsodai High School.   
What could Ms. Kuyami do? She couldn't expel her, (the girl's father made very large donations to the school annually), and nothing else would ever phase that girl. Ms. Kuyami knew exactly what she could do: absolutely nothing.   
The aged headmistress sighed and began writing out yet another detention slip with the name Chiyo Matsuko on it. She shook her head and scratched away with her pen.  
  
Down the hallway in room 124, Maemi Aiko Haung sat in the second row, third seat from the back. She sighed and looked out the window. Where the heck was Chiyo? They were supposed to go to the cafe after Chiyo's detention for coffee and some crash studying in Biology for their final on Tuesday. Maemi sighed again. Now, had Chiyo been called down to the office, or was she just skipping again? It was so hard to tell with her. Chiyo's whereabouts were just about as predictable as what she'd be wearing the next day. True, Chiyo was wore the same uniform as everyone else, and lots of the girls accesorized creatively, but no one accessorized quite like Chiyo. Even Maemi's tie-dyed knee socks were calmer than anything Chiyo ever wore! The girl frightened people. Seriously, seriously frightened them.   
Like today, for instance. Chiyo had on these wierd tights that made it look like there were several phoenix birds tatooed on each leg, and black, knee-high, high heeled, lace up boots with shiney silver buckles at the top, and shiney silver toes. Her long nails were painted turquoise, and she wore florescent yellow gel eyeliner with sky blue eyeshadow behind fuscia mascara, and bright, melon-colored lipstick. She'd pulled her almost-blond hair into two high braids that were pinned in place with sparkly purple plastic bow barrettes. A studded collar was around her neck, and several different bright plastic and beaded bracelets paraded up and down her arms. Big plastic gumball-machine rings were on her fingers, and she had a different earring in each one of her five ear piercings, one of which was a large, dangling, silver tiger.  
Maemi often wondered how Chiyo got past her mother like that in the morning. The Captain wasn't very approving of Chiyo's wardrobe choices. Maemi would never dream of going out in public like that! If she ever tried it, she'd look like a parrot; but somehow it looked alright, even good, on Chiyo.   
Maemi sighed again. Sometimes she seriously wondered what made that girl tick!  
  
Back in front of the office once more, Chiyo pocketed her detention slip. She'd pretended to pay attention to Ms. Kuyami's usual speech about a sense of dignity and pride in one's school and appearance, yadda, yadda, yadda. Chiyo looked shamed and nodded a lot, staring mournfully at the floor, and then left the office in record time the second Ms. Kuyami said that she could.  
She walked quickly down the linoleum tile hallway and listened to the heels of her new boots tap along. She noted how her footsteps sounded like a teacher's as she open the door to room 124.  
Chiyo slipped into the room and tossed her homework on the teacher's desk on her way past.  
"Do you have a pass, Matsuko?" Her history teacher asked without even looking up from the homework he was correcting. Chiyo wondered what he'd ever do if it actually wasn't her, for once.  
"No," she cheerfully replied as she slipped into her seat, third row, third seat from the back, and opened her book to the correct page.  
"Lemme guess, another detention slip with the name Chiyo Matsuko on it," Maemi Haung mumbled from her desk as she scratched away at her notes.  
"Somebody give this girl a cookie!" Chiyo mumbled sarcastically back, then grinned at her friend.  
Maemi grinned, too, and then the girls buckled down to their history notes.  
  
  
Maemi stopped abruptly in front of the cafe, flicked the ignition key, pulled her helmet off her head and sighed, trying to flip some of her pale-ish blond hair out of her eyes.  
"Tie-dyed knee socks? Maemi! You're turning into me!" A voice called brightly from just beside her.  
Maemi jumped and almost tumbled to the street with her moped on top of her.  
"Chiyo! That's not funny! I don't even resemble a neon sign!"  
Chiyo was leaning against a lamp post as she pulled her wrist guards off.  
"How do you do that? Do you drink jet fuel with your salad in the morning?" Maemi demanded of her friend as she checked her Garfield™ watch. Just as she suspected, detention had only let out maybe ten minutes ago. Even after all these years, she still marveled over how quickly Chiyo could do things without collapsing from exhaustion. The girl was like the energizer bunny; she kept going and going and going and going........   
"Yeah. It's great for the skin, too!" Chiyo quipped, untying a rollerblade and sticking her foot into a boot.  
Maemi rolled her eyes and locked her moped to said lamp post.  
"You're too chipper for your own good. You remind me of Miaka at times like this!"  
"Bite your tongue!" Chiyo cried in mock reprimandation, tying her rollerblades together by the laces and swinging them over her shoulder. The girls stood outside the cafe for a minute more as they laughed, and then entered the little coffee shop.  
Chiyo made a bee-line for a small booth in the corner as Maemi followed, still chuckling.  
"So what did the infamous Chiyo get caught doing this time?" Maemi asked off-handedly as she pulled her biology notebook out of her schoolbag.  
"Skipping phys. ed.,"  
"Again?"  
"Yet still. Hey, what's the name of that monkey woman?"  
"Lucy?"  
"No, the one who write that wierd book,"  
"Jane Goodall?"  
"Yeah, that's the one,"  
Maemi shook her head in amazement.  
Why was it that Chiyo could remember the title and supporting actors of every single Tom Cruise movie in order by day, month and year, had a GPA in the top 10 percentile at SA, but could not remember that Jane Goodall was the monkey lady who wrote the strange book?  
Chiyo, meanwhile, had already finished the notes she needed, had whipped off and put away her reading glasses, had downed a mug of expresso, and was idly flipping thought the pages of   
Fushigi Yûgi vl.II: Oracle.  
"You make me sick, Chiyo," Maemi muttered.  
"I love you too, Maemi-Chan!"   
Maemi rolled her eyes, Chiyo giggled, and the girls went back to their seperate tasks. Every now and then Maemi would quiz Chiyo on a biology question, which of course Chiyo would get right, or Chiyo would chuckle and read out loud a scene from her story book.  
"Where's Tasuki?" Maemi demanded in the middle of Chiyo's over-dramatized rendition of a Tamahome/Miaka reunion. "If I pay good money for a FY book, I demand to see some Fang-Boy action!"  
"Well, I could do with a little more Hotohori..." Chiyo said, clutching the open book to her chest and sighed dramatically. "He is such a babe!"  
"He's a cartoon character, Chiyo," Maemi teased.  
"Yeah, I know, but he's one dead-sexy cartoon character!" Chiyo cried and pretended to swoon, collapsing on the table in front of her.  
A waitress had been just about to ask the girls if they wanted refills when she caught the end of Chiyo's impassioned outburst. The poor, befuddled young woman turned abruptly and scurried back to the safety of her cash register.  
Maemi and Chiyo laughed.  
"Well, I think we can both agree that there should be more Chichiri all around," Maemi stated when her giggles had subsided enough for her to speak semi-clearly.  
"No Da!" Chiyo announced in agreement, and the girls giggled hysterically again. The bewildered waitress was sending them worried glances again, and that just made it all the funnier. Eventually, the young women settled down and attempted to behave themselves.  
"We should do this," Chiyo announced suddenly after a peaceful ten minutes of silence, slamming her book down on the table.  
"Write manga?" Maemi asked doubtfully.  
"No, no, no! Gods, how I pity you people cursed with common sense! We should do this!"  
"Get sucked into a story book and make friends with all the people who die in the end?"  
"Yeah! Wouldn't that be so great!?"  
Maemi arched an eyebrow and looked questioningly at Chiyo. Chiyo sighed.  
"Alright, Alright, maybe not the people dying at the end part, but all the adventures and stuff? Doesn't that sound like fun to you?"  
It was Maemi's turn to sigh.  
"Of course it does, Chiyo. That's why it's a story book. Things like that don't happen in real life, and especially not to girls like us,"  
"Miaka is a girl like us,"  
"Miaka is a cartoon, Chiyo. She's not like us,"  
Chiyo wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.  
"You sure know how to suck the magic out of everything, Maemi!" Chiyo sighed finally.  
Maemi shrugged.  
"Someone's gotta keep this duo below the atmosphere,"  
Chiyo grinned, then slipped her book into her schoolbag and stood.  
"Thank Suzaku you're here, then! I'd have us to Pluto or worse by now!"  
Maemi grinned, too, dropped her stuff into her bag, and also stood.  
"Hey, Maemi, whatcha doin' tonight?" Chiyo asked as the girls found themselves once again on the sidewalk in front of the cafe.  
"I dunno, why?" Maemi answered as she fiddled with the lock on her moped.  
"Well, The Captain's gone to meet Dad at a conference in Osaka. She won't be back until Tuesday, and Dad won't be back until Friday. Ya wanna spend the weekend?"  
Maemi squealed with joy, dropped the lock and threw her arms around Chiyo's neck.  
"Oh, God! Thank you, Chiyo! The twin terrors have double-header soccer matches all weekend long that I was just dying to miss!" Maemi chattered as she jumped up and down.  
"AAAGK!" Chiyo cried as she lost her balance, fell backwards, and the girls landed in an undignfied heap beside the moped.  
"A simple "yes" would've sufficed, you know!" Chiyo growled before she began to giggle again.  
"C'mon, I'll give you a lift to your place," Maemi laughed as she stood, dusted her skirt off and reached into the side bag she kept especially for Chiyo's helmet.  
Chiyo stuffed her pigtails into the helmet and got on behind Maemi, and the two girls sped off down the street.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hello, Nifty Pizza? Yes, I'd like two large Nifty pizzas with extra cheese, an order of your tasty twirls breadsticks, Nifty Pizza dipping sauce, a two-liter of orange pop, and two of your Nifty Choco Sundaes, please,"  
Chiyo said absently onto the phone, her face a perfect mask of concentration as she carefully put the petals onto the little daisy she'd painted on her big toe nail.  
"Phone number? 555-4384......yup, that's the address.....okay.....great....thank you! Ciao!"  
"Nifty Pizza?" Maemi repeated with a raised eyebrow as Chiyo hung up her fuzzy purple phone and continued painting her nails. Chiyo shrugged.  
"I thought we'd try something new,"  
Maemi also shrugged. Maemi was stretched out across her bed in her usual peace-sign-heart-and-smiley-face printed orange pyjamas, her hair in curlers, leafing through an Animerica Extra.   
"Man, Tasuki is so cool," she commented, reaching for a handfull of the cheese curls that were in the bowl beside her.  
"Yup...." Chiyo responded, biting her bottom lip a little.  
Chiyo was thrilled that Maemi had agreed to come over. Although most girls her age would've killed to have a penthouse apartment all to themselves as often as she did, Chiyo thought it got pretty lonesome after a while. Despite her outgoing attitude and wild ways, Chiyo was actually somewhat shy and did not have many friends. Maemi was about all that kept Chiyo sane now days.  
"There!" Chiyo announced, wiggling her daisied toes for Maemi to inspect.  
"Chiyo, hon, you have way too much time on your hands!"   
Chiyo shrugged. "Hey, my homework's done!" she laughed as her eyes skimmed over her extensive nailpolish collection and she settled on a soft peachy coral color.  
"When's that pizza getting here?" Maemi asked expectantly. Chiyo knew Maemi's soft spot for pizza. Well, Chiyo had a soft spot for pizza boys.   
"They said about twenty minutes,"  
Chiyo carefully finished one hand and started the next.  
"Oh, hey, looky! It's the part where Chichiri turns into Hotohori and Hotohori has a fit!"  
From there Maemi began reading outloud and the girls continued chatting merrily while they waited for their dinner to arrive.  
RRRIIINNNNGGGGG!  
Chiyo jumped with a start and glanced at the clock on her desk. Had it been twenty minutes already? She frowned and waved at her drying nails. Maemi was giving her a look that meant she was thinking the same thing.  
RRRIIINNNNGGGGG!  
Chiyo finally stood and padded to the door, smoothing her long, plain white night gown and trying not to smudge her daisies.  
"Coming," she called as she grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter and wobbled to the door.  
"Sorry about th--agghhtt," Chiyo's apology blended into a startled gasp at the pizza boy before her.  
The young man was tall and slender, with bright, fiery orange hair and seductively tilting eyes.  
He wore several beaded necklaces around his neck, and beaded earrings hung from his earlobes. When he smiled at her, she noticed two tiny little fang teeth. Chiyo stood stock still and stared at the boy, who stood stalk still and stared back, still grinning.  
"God, Chiyo! What's taking you so lo-nngghhh!"  
Maemi joined Chiyo in standing shocked before the delivery boy.  
"I take it you girls ordered all this food?"  
They nodded numbly in unison.  
"Wowie," Maemi breathed.  
The guy frowned, then scowled.  
"What is it with chicks? All of 'em, whenever I give 'em their pizzas! @#$% !"  
"T-T-Tasuki?" Maemi choked.  
The guy rolled his eyes. "Oh, gees....you chicks are Fushigi Whatsits fans, arencha?"  
Maemi and Chiyo nodded in unison again.  
"W-we've even read Secret Story," Chiyo mumbled.  
"And The Universe of the Four Gods," Maemi added in the same kind of voice.  
"And you chicks didn't come in and say hi?" The boy joked cheerfully.  
"Of course not! That's impossible! And things like that don't happen to girls like us!" Maemi scolded in her just-for-Chiyo voice. The pizza boy shook his head and handed Maemi the boxes and bags while Chiyo fumbled with her purse.  
"&*^$ ! I had no $%&#$%^ idea what I was getting into when I did this, did I? %$^& mumble mumble #$%#@ mumble $%^&* !" The guy muttered to himself as he made change.  
He flashed them a fanged smile as Chiyo handed him a tip of some indistinguishable amount.  
"You girls have a nice evening, and don't choke on yer pizza over me!" He called as he turned to leave.  
"Th-th-thank you!" Chiyo called as the front door drifted shut.  
Maemi carried the food into the living room and Chiyo numbly followed. The girls then sank slowly onto the couch and stared straight ahead in silence.  
"Ch-Chiyo?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Did Tasuki just deliver a pizza to us?"  
"Y-yeah..."  
The girls turned and looked at each other. Maemi's eyes were as wide as saucers, and Chiyo knew hers must be, too.  
"AAARRRGGHH!" The girls screamed as one, grabbed each others hands and did a mad little dance around the living room. Then Chiyo ran to get her mother's good champange glasses as Maemi burst into a cheerfully spontanious song that Chiyo placed as "All Star" by Smashmouth.  
Within minutes the girls had poured their orange pop and were singing wildly and jumping up and down and laughing and babbling as only teenage girls could manage without giving themselves appendicidal hemmorages.  
"Tasuki delivered our pizza! Tasuki delivered our pizza!" Maemi gasped, grinning in sheer delerium.  
"I know! This is soooo cool! This is the best day of my life! I knew it was all real! I knew it! I just knew it! I knew it! I even had detention today, and it's still the best day of my life! This is the best day of our young adolescent lives, Maemi!" Chiyo was babbling.  
"Taskui delivered our pizza! Tasuki delivered our--"  
WHUMP! THUD! CRASH! BOOM! FWOOOSH! KA-CHINK!  
"EEEK!" Maemi finished, dropping her glass, which shattered on the white carpet below. Chiyo was too  
scared to notice. "What was that!?" She whispered, shaking.  
"I dunno!" Maemi whispered back, trembling just as hard as the frightful noises continued.  
"Let's go see!" Chiyo suggested weakly and Maemi nodded unconvinced-ly.  
The girls huddled together and tiptoed to the front door, where the noise had occured.  
Chiyo opened it cautiously and they started to peek out.  
"REKKA SHINEN!"  
WOOOOOSH!  
"EEEK!" Maemi cried again as she and Chiyo pulled their faces back out of the way of the wall of flames that had just shot down the hallway.  
Chiyo slammed the door shut, grabbed Maemi's arm, and dragged her friend at a run down the hallway and into her bedroom, not stopping until she and Maemi were both huddled in a shivering mass on the floor of the linen closet in Chiyo's personal bathroom.  
"What'll we do? Tasuki's toasting the hallway!" Chiyo cried on the verge of tears.  
"Why!?" Maemi demanded, crazed by fear.  
"I don't know!"  
"There must be something dangerous out there! We're gonna die!" Maemi screamed, grabbing Chiyo's face in both hands and shaking it.  
"OW!" Chiyo screamed in response.  
"Ohmigod, Chiyo! This is the worst day of my life! We are so going to die!" Maemi was screaming over and over. "I just met Tasuki and we're gonna die! We're so gonna freakin' die! This is so not a test, Chiyo! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!"  
The sounds of the battle in the hallway were continuing full throttle as the girls remained piled in a trembling mass of orange pyjamas, white linen, nail-polished daisies, towels, spare toilet paper, and half-undone curlers.  
Then suddenly, all noise ceased. The girls paused in their screaming as crazed maniacal laughter echoed through the top floor of Chiyo's building, and then all was silent.  
"I thought things like this didn't happen to girls like us!" Chiyo spat sarcastically after a moment.  
"Oh, shut up, Chiyo!"  
Chiyo swallowed nervously and peeked her nose out the closet door.  
"Do you think it's over?"  
"How should I know!?"  
Chiyo sidestepped skittshly out of the linen closet and into the bathroom, and from there she krept into her bedroom.  
"Oh no! What happened to Tasuki?" She wondered with a gasp.  
"That maniacally laughing voice could've got him!" Maemi cried.  
"We have to save him!" Chiyo announced, grabbing the nearest weapon she could find, which happened to be her hairdryer. Maemi grabbed one of the old dolls lining Chiyo's dresser top and nodded.  
"Yeah, we can't let someone as cool as Tasuki die in your hallway!"  
"Thanks, Maemi," Chiyo muttered drily.  
"What are friends for?" Maemi asked with a sweet smile.  
The aforementioned girls ventured forth through Chiyo's nearly destroyed apartment and paused before the door. "One," Chiyo whispered.  
"Two," Maemi continued, holding up her Raggedy Anne.  
"THREE!" The girls yelled together, leaping into the hallway. Chiyo was swinging her hairdryer around her head like a lasso by the cord, and Maemi had her stuffed toy held up like a James Bond pistol.  
Maemi saw him first.  
"Tasuki!" She cried at the crumpled figure in the corner by the fire escape.  
"Quick, get him in the apartment!" Chiyo ordered, running to their fallen hero and trying to lift him by the shoulders. Maemi grabbed his knees and the young women half drug, half slid the boy towards the open apartment door.  
"Good...Gracious! This....guy's....heavy!" Chiyo commented between tugs.  
"Yeah...tell....me about...it..." Maemi agreed.  
The girls finally suceeded in their task and stretched the celestial warrior out on the kitchen floor.  
"Get a pillow for his head!" Chiyo called to Maemi, who had gone off in search of bandages and aloe gel.  
Chiyo knealt by Tasuki's side, wondering what they could do for him. It was obvious he needed medical attention. But what was he doing in Tokyo? Delivering pizzas, of all things! And why was Tasuki starting wars in her hallway!?  
Chiyo sighed as Maemi reappeared with a large teddy bear and an armful of first aid kits.  
"Whaccha do? Clean out the house!?" Chiyo demanded.  
"I panicked," Maemi said a little sheepishly and grinned.  
Together they propped Tasuki's head up with the teddy bear.  
"What do we do now?" Maemi whispered.  
"I guess we should stop this bleeding," Chiyo answered, reaching for a bandage and some antiseptic.   
She gingerly touched the bleeding spot on Tasuki's forehead with her fingertips and was shocked to feel a surge of energy shoot through her.   
"What was that?" She gasped.  
"Look!" Maemi cried, pointing to the wound as it healed. "How'd you do that, Chiyo!?"  
"I don't know!" Chiyo said in a panicky voice.  
"Try it again!" Maemi said, pointing to another bad wound on the pizza-delivering mage's side.  
Chiyo hesitantly reached out and put her fingertips on the wound. She felt the same surge of energy, but this time, a golden-white hot light began to eminate around the trio.  
"Chiyo....." Maemi whispered nervously.  
"Chiyo! Stop! What are you doing!"  
"I don't know!" Chiyo screamed as Maemi threw her arms around her and they started spinning.  
"MAEMI!" Chiyo screamed, clinging to her friend.  
"CHIYO!" Maemi screamed back, clinging just as much and screaming just as loud.  
The last thing Chiyo could recall was the two girls toppling over the unconcious boy as they spun out into the white light and began flying fast on a ride like a super-fast upside-down roller coaster with no determined end. 


	2. Not Bad for Meeting a Bus Head On!

Please look back to the disclaimers/whatevers on Chapter one! Thanks!  
  
  
Chapter Two: Not Bad for Meeting a Bus Head On  
  
Chiyo frowned with her eyes closed. She was having this wierd dream that Maemi had come over to spend the night and they'd ordered a pizza. Except Tasuki was the delivery boy, and on his way back down to the lobby he got in a big fight with a maniacally laughing hair dryer. Maemi and Chiyo had gone down to save his dumb butt and then Maemi, Tasuki and herself had all hid in a linen closet. Suddenly, Chiyo's flashlight malfunctioned and blew up, and then the floor opened beneath them and they all fell into a giant toilet, which got flushed, and then they'd landed in Munchkin land from the Wizard of Oz. The munchkins were just starting to sing when Chiyo heard a soft sound like a cross between a moan and whimpering from somewhere near her. Then she realized that someone was lying half on top of her, and that she had a splitting headache.  
"Ooh....ow....," she muttered, bringing a hand up to her head and gently feeling the sizable lump there.  
She suddenly got a sensation somewhat akin to that which one would feel if they touched a bare wire with a mild electrical charge. Chiyo frowned once more with her eyes still closed. Now, what were bare wires doing on her forehead? And why hadn't they fried her brain yet?  
"Hey, girl! Uh... you okay?" A slightly familiar voice asked somewhere far away.  
"I-I think so, thanks....where's Chiyo?" Maemi's bewildered voice replied.  
"Over there,"  
Chiyo heard Maemi gasp in horror.  
"OHMIGOD! Chiyo! Don't move an inch!"  
Well, that was the wrong thing to say! Immeadiatly fearing to find her legs on the other side of the room from her head, Chiyo's eyes snapped open. She remembered the feeling of someone being half on top of her at the same instant her eyes locked on the guy.  
The unnaturally gorgeous guy who was half on top of her.  
"Chiyo! Don't----" Maemi's desperate warning was interrupted by Chiyo's natural impulses.  
"AAAIIIEEEEE!" She shrieked, swinging her leg back and bringing her knee forward with all the strength her years of strenuous track conditioning had endowed her with.  
She then pushed the guy(who was doubled over and hugging his tummy)off the bed.  
He landed on the floor with a thud and groaned.  
Chiyo leapt to her feet and stood astride the bed with her hands in a fierce judo pose.  
Tasuki was staring at her with very, very wide eyes, his lips drawn tight together.  
"Wowie," he murmured after a minute.  
Maemi crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Chiyo with severe dissaproval.   
"I hope you know who you just maimed," she said, also after a minute or two of speculation.  
"And stop doing that! You haven't studied judo for six years!"  
Chiyo dropped her pose with a fierce scowl.  
"But that guy was on top of me! I had every right to remove him,"  
Suddenly, Maemi bit her lip and began to tremble.  
"Maemi! What's wrong with you!" Chiyo demanded angrily. Then she reconized the look on Maemi's face.  
"Stop laughing! It's not funny!" Chiyo cried as both Maemi and Tasuki burst out into hysterical laughter.  
"WHAT IS SO FUNNY! STOP IT! STOP LAUGHING RIGHT NOW!"  
Chiyo remained standing on the bed as the two laughing morons laughed some more.  
She finally glanced around the room, which was large and scarlet and gold and very, very, very expensive looking. This wasn't her kitchen! This wasn't even her apartment... or her building for that matter!  
Maemi was on the floor clutching her stomach by the time the door opened. A slight young woman with a braid of long, purpley-black hair and a beauty mark near her eye entered, then gasped. Chiyo felt slightly relieved to note that the woman was wearing her pyjamas, too.  
"Your Majesty!" She cried, and Tasuki and Maemi's laughing fit was renewed.  
Chiyo felt a chill go up her back, crinkle over her neck, and tiptoe up her scalp.  
"It is alright, Nuriko. We are unharmed,"  
Chiyo's mouth opened in a perfect O of horror. "Oh, NO!" she cried.  
Tasuki was now leaning against the wall chuckling mildly, and Maemi was still as yet sprawled on the floor at his feet, tittering insanely.  
"I hate you, Maemi!" Chiyo cried, taking a long, practiced hurtler's leap directly over the heads of the kneeling Nuriko and the half sitting man she'd kneed.....who's name happened to be Hotohori.  
She marched directly up to her traveling compainions.   
"You two could've warned me! Or better yet, you two could've warned him!" she exclaimed, jabbing a thumb in the fallen emperor's direction.  
"Hey! Ya never gave us the chance! Did she, floor girl?" Tasuki replied, scowling slightly and nodding towards Maemi.  
Chiyo noticed a bruise on Tasuki's forehead and decided to take the oppurtunity to freak him out as revenge. As long as she hadn't been hallucinating it...she secretly prayed the shocky-glowy thingy wasn't part of her imagination.  
"This is all your fault! You....you....harisen wagging, card throwing, pizza-delivering M-MONKEY HEAD!" She shrieked, took her three forefingers, and poked the bruise roughly.  
"AGK!" Tasuki cried, leaping back in angry surprise. "@#$* %$^& *%$^$!"  
Chiyo grinned innocently at Tasuki's glare of hatred.  
"What the heck are ya? Some kinda phsyco!?" He demanded, rubbing at his forehead.  
The three other occupants of the room only stared dropped-jawed in response at the two as the demonic-looking Chiyo crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her chin up smuggly.  
"That's what you get for blowing up my hallway and kidnapping two innocent teenage girls from a sleepover! You're a horrible pizza boy! I'm calling your employers! I want my money back!"   
Tasuki stared at her in confusion.  
"What is this chick talking about!?"  
No one bothered to answer him becasue Maemi had stood and walked to the still trembling Chiyo.  
"Hey Chiyo...welcome to Konan," she said brightly.  
"Wonderful," Chiyo groaned, burying her face in her hands.  
"Just wonderful."  
  
  
Maemi grinned to herself as she leaned on the railing of the palace. Hotohori had been pretty nice about the whole situation, once a few things had been explained. He'd even laughed, which showed what a great sense of humor he had. Right now he Nuriko, and Tasuki were talking about something or other in private. Chiyo was currently sitting just to the left of Maemi with her back against the railing and her head on her drawn-up knees.  
"I can't believe it. I finally get to meet Hotohori, the most liquidy sexy seishi of 'em all... and I'm wearing my nightgown," she murmured every few minutes.  
"Now you know how Miyoko felt," Maemi teased.  
Chiyo groaned and drew her knees in a little tighter.  
Maemi chuckled a little and continued surveying the palace grounds.  
"It's really pretty here, Chiyo. You should uncurl yourself from your fetal position for a few minutes and check it out,"  
"That's okay...I'm doing just fine right where I am,"  
Maemi playfully kicked at Chiyo with her toe.  
"Ah, c'mon, cheer up. It could've been worse. You could've nutted him,"  
"MAEMI! You are NOT helping!"  
Maemi smiled again as she remembered the look on Chiyo's face when Nuriko had come into the room and....  
"Maemi! I HATE you! I KNOW you're smiling! STOP IT!"  
"I just can't believe that you finally met your precious Hotohori and you beat him up...in your nightgown, yet!"  
"Shut UP!" Chiyo cried, trying to pretend she wasn't laughing and trying to look angry.  
"And then you started crying and....!"  
Maemi never got to finish her sentence, because Chiyo had lept on top of her and was gleefully procedeing to beat her face into the floor.  
"AGK! Mercy! Mercy!" Maemi yelled, laughing and trying to shield herself from Chiyo's gentle blows.  
"Never!" Chiyo replied in a mock-valliant voice, laughing as well. "Feel the wrath of Chiyo Matsuko!"  
Maemi was just about to knock Chiyo's head against the railing when she saw Nuriko running towards them, and running fast.  
"Chiyo! Maemi!" He yelled.  
"Euh?" Chiyo questioned, sitting up. Maemi took that oppurtunity to push her unceremoniously into a undignified sprawl so she could sit up, and Chiyo whacked her upside the head in retaliation.  
Maemi looked towards the frantic young man, and was surprised to see Hotohori and Tasuki with him, and they too, were running. Hotohori had his sword.  
"What the--" She started to say, but was interrupted by Tasuki.  
"WATCH OUT!" He yelled, whipping out his iron harisen.  
Maemi looked up just as Chiyo screamed, and then Maemi pushed Chiyo and they both rolled out of the way, just barely missing being hacked in two by the sword of some mean guy in black.  
"REKKA--" Tasuki started.   
Maemi was too busy staring up in terror at the sword posed above her and Chiyo. Chiyo had just brought her arm up as if to shield them, when suddenly another white-hot light began to glow around Maemi and Chiyo. The friends froze, and the next thing Maemi knew, the light was taking on a golden hue. Nuriko and Hotohori were staring in shock. Tasuki was too concerned with the mean man in black.  
"SHINEN!" Tasuki finished, and flames were swirling around the girls. Maemi wasn't sure whether to be relieved or unsettled that she and Maemi weren't touched by them.   
"Oh, NO!" Maemi cried as they started to spin slowly at first, and then faster and faster. "NOT AGAIN!"  
"I HATE this ride! I wanna get off!"   
Maemi ducked her head and grabbed Chiyo's hand, and the next thing she knew the girls were spiraling towards oblivion for the second time that weekend.  
  
  
  
"--mi! Maemi! Wake up!" Maemi opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Chiyo, who was grinning ear to ear.  
"Maemi! We did it! We're home! We went to Konan and came back!"  
Maemi sat up and realized that they were indeed back in Chiyo's apartment.  
"Oh, Maemi! That was so cool!" Chiyo cried.  
"I never would've dreamed it possible!" Maemi breathed, and then the girls squealed and began dancing in wild circles, and Maemi broke into plethora of random songs.  
Suddenly, Chiyo swore.  
"What?" Maemi asked, pausing in mid-verse.  
"I completely forgot about the carpet! Get a brush and help me with this soda stain!"  
Maemi grabbed the brush and ran in to the living room, where Chiyo was putting the pieces of broken champagne glass in the box with their now cold pizza. As Maemi began scrubbing and Chiyo continued attempting to straighten the destroyed living room, she stopped and looked up at Chiyo.  
"Hey, Chiyo?"  
"Hm?"  
"Watcha gonna tell the Captain about the hallway?"  
Chiyo paused and looked at her, and then they both began laughing again.  
  
  
  
"That was so strange!" Nuriko muttered again.  
Tasuki sighed in exasperation. "Will ya quit sayin that, already!?" He demanded.  
"To be truthful, it was not all that odd," Hotohori said from across the table. "Miaka has made many more entrances in many more shocking ways,"  
As if on cue, the short Japanese girl came careening into the dining hall in nothing but that wierd white shirt she wore with her other-world get up and those strange little white pants. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail with that red ribbon she always wore, and she was now half-doubled over a chair and panting.   
"Did you have a good rest, Miaka?" Nuriko inquired sarcastically with an arched eyebrow.  
"Where are they!?" Miaka demanded.  
"Where are who?" Nuriko asked.  
"The girls! The girls, the girls, the girls!"  
Hotohori frowned.  
"The young women who arrived early this morning?" He asked.  
"Yes! The ones from my world!" Miaka said, seating herself next to Nuriko and piling in on the bowl of dumplings that were there.  
"Hey!" Nuriko cried.  
"They went back," Tasuki said, wondering how much that girl could eat before she exploded.  
"WHAT!?" Miaka cried, dropping her empty bowl and chopsticks.  
"They already returned to your world," Hotohori finished gently.  
Miaka looked like she was going to cry.  
"B-but...how did they get here? Who were they? Did you know what school they came from? What city?"  
"Their names were Maemi....and...uh..."  
"Chiyo," Nuriko filled in for Tasuki.  
"Yeah. They were both taller and a little older that you, both skinnier, and they were both blond. Maemi had blue-green eyes, and the other one had dark eyes, like yours," Tasuki murmured, picturing Maemi's laughing face for an instant.   
"But that Chiyo girl didn't look like you, really. The taller one did, kind of," Nuriko finished for him again, giving Tasuki an odd look.   
Tasuki scowled and turned away, nursing his cup of hot tea.  
"Did you hear their school name? What else do you know?" Miaka was demanding.  
Tasuki wasn't paying attention. Why had the girls come back with him? He remembered being thrown into the wall in that building, and then the next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor in Hotohori's bedroom next to Maemi.  
"Hey, girl, you okay?" He'd asked, because he didn't know her name yet.  
"Um...yeah, I think so. Where's Chiyo?" She'd said, grinning and taking his hand as he helped her up. And then later, when Chiyo'd gone ballistic on Hotohori and Maemi was laughing--  
"-ELLO? Earth to Tasuki!" Miaka was yelling in his ear.  
"WHAT!" He demanded roughly, jumping a little and flushing slightly.  
"I said will you go back to where ever it is you took off to and get them again?" Miaka repeated pleadingly, her eyes all big and dewy and her bottom lip pouted out a little. She looked like a starving,  
lost, wounded baby puppy when she made that face. None of the warriors could ever refuse that starving-puppy face. Not even Tasuki(his youngest sister used to use that face on him all the time). He scowled a little more. Why would he ever want to go back to that place? It had been smelly and loud and crowded and dirty...not to mention full of giggling Miaka wannabes.  
Maemi's face flashed through his mind's eye for a moment.  
He sighed a little and glared at the table before him.  
"Yeah, sure, sure. Whatever ya say,"  
  
  
It was Monday.  
Chiyo was late, as usual. She strolled into her classroom and took her seat in the back. The teacher ingnored her. He was used to it by now.  
Maemi glanced up at her from her book and smiled, and Chiyo grinned back.  
"Hiya, hot stuff!" Chiyo quipped, pulling out a binder and a pen.  
"You're so wierd, Chiyo," came the reply.   
"Be quiet, Matsuko. Leave Haung alone." The teacher muttered off-handedly.  
Chiyo grinned and ducked her head. She had a great feeling about today, like something wonderful and exciting was going to happen. Chiyo wasn't gonna let some crummy math teacher ruin it for her!  
"Nice outfit. Whoa! Nice hair, too!" Maemi whispered, grinning, and Chiyo could tell Maemi had that kind of feeling about today, too.  
"Thanks," Chiyo beamed and brushed at her hair a little self conciously. The Captian had taken her to get it done yesterday, and she'd had it cut to just below her jaw, with spikey little bangs. Right now she had neon blue clip-in streaks in it. And the outfit! She was very proud of this one. She wore white knee socks with little ruffles and a bow on the tops, and shiney red mary-janes with rhinestoned buckles. In her ears were her silver and gold tiger earrings, and various gold, silver and red sparkling studs. She'd painted her nails red, and wore a clear plastic collar with a dangling red rhinestone heart. She also wore her usual vast multitudes of bracelets and rings and necklaces, including two charm bracelets that she'd just had made in a specialty shop. Her make-up was also a new thing for her--everything natural except the cherry-red lips and the dramatic grey and black eye shadow.  
"You look good, too," Chiyo whispered back. It was true, too. With her white blouse and grey skirt and sky blue tie, Maemi had tie-dyed knee socks, and a matching tie-dyed vest(which had a large daisy pinned to it). Her saddle shoes were the regular style except for the orange shoe-laces, and her palish-blond hair was pulled up into two high ponies that were secured with scrunchies that matched her vest and socks. It was the wildest outfit Chiyo had ever seen on her semi-conservative friend, and as far as she was concerned, it looked good.   
Chiyo rememered the charm bracelets.  
"Hey, Maemi! Look what I got!" She whispered, suddenly remembering the new charm bracelets, and   
taking one off and tossing it into Maemi's texbook.  
The bracelets were Chiyo's brainchild, sort of a momento of their adventure with Tasuki.  
They were just silver chains, but dangling from each one were five tiny porcelin charms: A red phoenix, a blue dragon, a gold tiger, a green turtle-snake, and a tiny pizza box.  
"Wowie!" Maemi gasped, slipping hers on. "This is sooo cool! Dig the pizza!"  
"MATSUKO! HAUNG!" The teacher bellowed. Maemi and Chiyo glanced sideways at each other and grinned before going back to their books.  
"Let's go to the cafe after school," Maemi whispered after about five minutes.  
"Sounds good," Chiyo whispered back.   
"Matsuko, Haung! I warned you two!"  
"Lets meet there, say, three?" Chiyo continued, not bothering to whisper.  
"Are you two listening to me!?  
"That sounds good. Don't you have detention today, though?" Maemi asked, also ignoring the teacher.  
"THAT'S IT! GO TO THE OFFICE!"  
"Sorry, Sir, we just weren't listening," Maemi quipped over her shoulder.  
Chiyo burst out laughing. The teacher looked like that vein in his forehead was gonna pop any second....  
"NOW!" He yelled louder, his voice getting a little shrill.  
The two girls scrambled to gather their belongings and scampered out of the classroom and into the hallway, still giggling.  
"So are we actually gonna go to the office today?" Maemi asked as they ran down the steps.  
"I think we should. I mean, it's kinda risky, with the Captain home now and all...." Chiyo said nervously.  
She and Maemi had arrived in front of their lockers. Chiyo glanced at the lockers, and then down the hallway at the headmistress' office.  
"Oh well," Chiyo smiled as she opened her locker, ditched her school books, and grabbed her rollerblades.  
Maemi did the same with her books, and then the girls skipped quickly out the side door and ran laughing down the sidewalk towards Maemi's moped.  
  
  
Tasuki sighed and stared at the little glass of saki in front of him.  
How could he find those two girls? Where could they be? He'd gone to the shorter one's--Chiyo, if he remembered right(the chick in the long white dress)--apartment, but all he'd succeeded in was scaring the crap out of some blond foreign woman he'd guessed to be Chiyo's mother. Their looks and mannerisms were more than slightly similar, he noted grimly, scowling and rubbing at his newly blackend eye.  
After his encounter with the shrew-like demon that had birthed Chiyo, he'd gone to various schools and looked there. He got kicked out of most of them, too. There was a total lack of hospitality in this world!  
Tasuki drained his glass, tossed some coins on the table, and walked away.   
Well, he was gonna have to find those two nutty women soon. Miaka told him that time ran differently in her world; the few short days he'd spent in Tokyo had been months in Konan. Days were probably flying by even as he got jostled and shoved along the busy street. His hand tightened around the harisen under his long coat. He sighed. The temptation to just whip out the iron fan-like weapon and mutter the short incantation and blow the busy, rushing people into skittering little ashes so that he could walk freely was just too strong. Some woman in a grey suit and grey heels knocked into him, her bag jabbing into his ribs.  
"#$%^$" He cried, clutching the remains of his ribcage in one hand. Tasuki'd had enough!  
He quickly dodged onto a side street and broke into a run, trying to get rid of some pent-up frustration and escape the masses of dully clad people.  
Tasuki wanted to sit somewhere quiet and be alone while he tried to figure out how to find Maemi in this impossibly big world she lived in. He ducked into a small tavern-like building that this city had thousands of, and sat in a curving booth in the corner. He got some hot tea, put his chin on his hand, and brooded.  
  
  
"Wanna stop at the cafe?" Chiyo yelled over the moped's engine from her spot behind Maemi.  
Maemi nodded her head in response and swung a wide turn that sent Chiyo laughing hysterically, and angry drivers honking their horns and swearing out their car windows at the girls.  
By the time they got to the cafe, Chiyo was out of breath, and she and Maemi were laughing again. They removed their helmets and tumbled noisily through the door.  
Chiyo did a quick scan of the room as Maemi slipped into their usual table.  
Chiyo's eyes lingered for a moment on the shock of bright orange hair just barely visible above the edge of a corner booth. She blinked a few times, shook her head, and dismissed it as hallucinations brought on by math class boredom  
"I cannot believe we just did that!" Maemi was laughing.  
"This is almost as bad as the time I jumped out the window!"  
"Or maybe as bad as the time a pizza boy sucked us down the astral toilet and into a storybook," Chiyo teased, ordering a caramel cappucino. Maemi made a face at her.  
"But really, I just don't get it. What could be making us act like this!? I mean, you're never this crazy....with the exception of the window incident," Chiyo continued, grinning wickedly.  
Maemi stuck her tongue out at her.  
"Maybe it's the bracelets," She said in that "I'm-Maemi-and-I'm-feeling-mysterious" voice of hers.  
"Yeah, the Celestial Charm Bracelets of Suzaku!" Chiyo exclaimed dramatically.  
"Oh, bite me!" Maemi replied, laughing.  
  
  
  
Tasuki was shaken out of his brooding by the arrival of two loud girls.  
He chose to ignore them.  
What was he gonna do? Miaka would eat him for breakfast if he came home without those nutty  
girls! They had to be somewhere! This @^# &!%^ city couldn't be that big...could it?  
"I cannot believe we just did that!" One of the loud girly voices exclaimed from somewhere behind him. He growled a little and sunk lower in the seat. He wished those dumb girls would just shut up! He needed to think! Girls! Ug! They were the same in all worlds! Except for maybe Maemi...and why was he thinkin' about that chick so much!?  
"Yeah, the Celestial Charm Bracelets of Suzaku!" A different loud, girly voice cried behind him, and then there was that loud, girly laughter again. But instead of being annoyed, Tasuki lifted his chin from his hand and listened a little more closely to the conversation.  
He picked up tidbits here and there, but what caught his attention was the fact that they were   
now saying his name. Repeatedly.  
He turned slightly and peeked over the edge of his seat.  
The girl with her back to him was blond, and with a short haircut he didn't reconize. But the girl across from her, the laughing one--It was Maemi!  
Tasuki quickly spun back around, suddenly struck with an unfamiliar feeling of nervousness.  
Hit bit his lip a little and frowned. Well, he'd found Maemi! She probably wouldn't mind if he came and talked to her....so why was his heart hammering inside his chest? Why did he feel like he was gonna vomit? Must be this different world tea, He convinced himself, edgily nudging his cup a few inches away from himself.  
Tasuki turned and peeked at Maemi again. She was smiling and looking at something her friend was pointing to in a book. He spun back around. What was he gonna do!? What was he gonna do!?  
What was he gonna-----  
"Tasuki?"   
"ARGH!" He cried, jumping up out of his seat and knocking his cup of tea over. "WHAT!?" He demanded, spinning around and trying to hide his further embarrasment. He slowly sat back down in his chair.  
"It is Tasuki! Tasuki, what are you doing here?" Maemi damanded cheerfully, leaping up and slipping into the booth with him. Her friend followed, and he realized numbly that it was, in fact, Chiyo, the short spazzy girl. Funny, he'd thought that chick's hair was longer before. A lot longer. He scowled.  
"Gak! What happened to your eye!?" Maemi was asking.  
"Uh...I went to her home looking for you two, and some crazy foreign woman attacked me with a lamp," Tasuki mumbled crossly in way of explanation, motioning at Chiyo.  
Chiyo burst out laughing.  
"The Captian strikes again!" Maemi cried, laughing also.  
"The...Captian...?"  
"My mother. She's an American. Now you know where I get it from," Chiyo gasped out when the nutty girls had wound themselves down. Tasuki frowned and gingerly rubbed at his bruised eye.  
"Oh, poor Tasuki. Now cut that out! I can fix it," Chiyo said, leaning over the table and poking him in the eye.  
"OW!" He yelled, clapping a hand over his face.  
"WHATARYA, CRAZY?! THAT HURT! @#%$# !" He yelled louder, and the serving woman ran into a back room. The girls giggled.  
"Relax, Tasuki. It's all better now," Chiyo said.  
Tasuki eyed her uneasily. He was sure that girl was a demon or something. She had blue hair, for cryin' out loud! Not to mention the makeup....something about the way her eyes were painted made him uneasy. Like she knew every little thing that crossed his mind. He didn't like it.  
"So you were looking for us?" The devil girl asked with narrowed eyes, and he got that feeling again.  
Tasuki scowled.  
"Yeah. Miaka wants to meet you two nuts for some reason. She made me come back and see if you'd come," Tasuki muttered, gazing at Maemi, who smiled. He turned back to Chiyo, who was studying him with narrowed eyes again. Then she smiled like she had just found out some big secret.  
"Hey, Maemi, wanna go to Konan?" She asked.  
Maemi grinned, totally oblivious to whatever was going on in the demon girl's mind.  
"Yeah, sure, why not?"  
With that the girls stood up and went to the cash register. They paid their bill and went outside.  
Tasuki followed suite.  
"So, when do we leave?" Maemi asked, walking up to a little two-wheely-motorized something or other. Apparently, she owned the crazy thing.  
"Chiyo? CHIYO MARY MATSUKO!" An irate voice bellowed from behind them.  
"Oh no! It's that devil woman! She followed me!" Tasuki yelled, fearing another black eye. He ducked behind Chiyo, who looked at him strangely.  
"You! Crazy stalker! Get off my daughter! NOW!" The angry blond woman yelled, running down the sidewalk and looking really mad.  
"How 'bout we run right about..... NOW!" Chiyo suggested in a singsong voice, taking off down the street on her last word.  
Chiyo grabbed Maemi's hand and pulled her somewhat behind her as Tasuki ran after the demon girl. Man! This Chiyo was quick! He was having trouble keeping up with her!  
"Hey! My bike!" Maemi was yelling.  
"CHIYO! WATCH OUT!" The woman called in fear as the girls dashed off the sidewalk and into traffic and they both turned to look at the frantic blond woman.  
"MAEMI! GET OUT OF THE WAY" Tasuki yelled, his heart all but stopping in fear for Maemi and Chiyo. He didn't know what the girls had just ran out in front of, but he knew it was dangerous. Anything that large and that noisy had to be dangerous.  
The girls turned in shock and faced the blaring horn and wide front of the oncoming city bus.  
"AIEEEEEEEEE!" Maemi shrieked. Chiyo stood numbly beside her with wide eyes and a fearful expression across her brightly accented features. He had to do something! They could get killed! Those stupid, stupid girls were obviously too scared to move, and they were just standing there, hand in hand, and that thing was speeding towards them....the last thing Tasuki clearly remembered was leaping in front of the mechanical hulk and tackling both Chiyo and Maemi to the ground. Then there was a bright light and a nauseating, spinning sensation....  
  
  
  
  
  
Maemi blinked. Was she dead? She was staring up at a golden ceiling. It was really pretty.  
She moaned and turned her head. She was a little sore, and a little stiff, but other than that, okay. Not bad for meeting a bus head on! She was lying on a cold, hard floor, she noted.  
"Maemi?" A familiar male voice asked from nearby. She sat up and looked around.  
"Tasuki?" She whispered back.  
"Are ya okay?" He asked, scowling slightly. God, he was cute when he did that!  
He stood, then offered her a hand and helped her up.   
Dé ja vòus is the feeling that you have done something before....  
"Yeah, I'm alright... How about you?" She answered a little nervously. He was holding her by the elbows and standing really close to her and looking deep into her eyes....  
"I-I'm fine," He said shortly, dropping her arms and taking a few steps back.  
Maemi blushed and hugged her arms somewhat nervously.  
"Are we dead?" She asked after a few tense minutes.  
"No, we're back in---"  
"THEY'RE HERE! THAT'S WHAT IT WAS!" A voice yelled so loud that Maemi jumped back into Tasuki's arms. They looked at each other and then both lept back like the other was a rabid, starving   
tasmanian devil.  
Was Tasuki blushing?  
Maemi didn't have time to wonder about it.  
"It's true! She is from my world!" The loud voice cried, throwing their arms around her from behind.  
Maemi spun and pushed her attacker off. Chiyo was the only one who could get away with spontaniety like that, and even then....Maemi blinked and looked down at the girl who was all but dancing around her on her feet. She a little taller than Chiyo, slightly chubby, and with longish auburn-ish hair that was in a longish side braid tied with a red ribbon, and wearing a brown uniform with a turquoise tie...Maemi would know that uniform anywhere!  
"Miaka?" She asked, a little in awe of the fruity imp in spite of herself.  
"How do you know me?" Miaka asked, tilting her head in puzzlement.  
"Nevermind," Maemi replied, deciding not to go into a whole new alternate world scenario now.  
Something was wrong....something was missing from this scene...  
"Where are you from?"  
"Tokyo, Japan,"  
"Oooh, wow! That's awesome, so am I!"  
"What school do you go to? I don't reconize your uniform. " Miaka continued.  
"Sumida Academy," Maemi said, frowning and glancing around the room.  
"Where?" Miaka asked, confused. Maemi sighed. SA probably didn't exist in Miaka's alternate Tokyo.  
"Um..it's really small and privately owned...and kind of secretly exclusive,"  
"Ohh. You must be really sharp, then. Hey, Hotohori! Nuriko! You said there were two of them,"  
Maemi gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth.  
"Chiyo!" She cried. "Oh no!"  
  
  
  
  
"MAMA!" Someone screamed. The pitiful, frightened plea echoed and returned three times over.  
Chiyo gasped and opened her eyes, breathing hard. She then dropped her head back to the ground when she realized she was the one who'd screamed.  
The birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and somewhere nearby there was a small stream. She lay still for a moment, squinting up at the sunlight that was filtering in through the thick branches full of leaves above her. Chiyo sat up and groaned. She was a little stiff, and a little sore, but other than that, she was okay. Not bad for meeting a bus head on, she thought. Chiyo now stood somewhat shakily and examined her surroundings. She was in the woods, that much she knew. She didn't think she was dead, and if she was, well, there wasn't much she could do about it now; more likely she'd been sucked back into the World of the Four Gods again, although why, she couldn't fathom. She looked around some more. There was indeed a small stream nerby, and there were millions of wildflowers and tall, thick green grass in a small clearing a few yards off. It was a pretty place, and if Chiyo wasn't so disturbed, she would've enjoyed it more. She wasn't really too upset about the possibility of being dead. What upset her was the fact that she was alone.  
"Maemi!" She yelled, hoping her friend was maybe just hiding to tease her.  
"Tasuki! Where are you guys?"  
Chiyo bit her lip and stood uncertainly when no answer came. Now she was getting scared.  
What if she'd come into this world and Maemi hadn't? What about the bus? And where the heck was Tasuki? (Chiyo was sure that somehow this, too, was all his fault) What if Maemi was dead? Or hurt really bad and in horrible pain? What if she was in a coma or paralyzed, or blind or deaf or deformed or mutilated by the crushing tires of the bus beyond all recognition or washed down a sewer......or worst of all...what if Maemi had also been sucked back into this world and was wandering alone somehwere? Chiyo's heart was working overtime. She looked frantically from left to right. She had to find Maemi somehow! But she had no idea where she was! She could be weeks from the nearest town! Chiyo heard a slight hissing noise and froze, looking slowly down.   
She screamed at the large snake that was crawling over her feet, kicked it off frantically, and then turned tail and sped away from the sunny clearing, running as fast as she could in the other direction, only stopping when she tripped over a tree root and sprawled flat on her face in the dirt, moss and dead leaves below. She lay on the ground, panting, and tried to figure out if her ankle was broken or just twisted. She hoped it was just twisted...please let it be just twisted!  
Chiyo sat up and rubbed at her slightly swelling ankle.  
"Damn," she muttered. This went on for several minutes before she remembered the flashy-healy thingy.  
She was just about to attempt to heal herself when a noise somewhere to her left made her start--it was a swift sound, like a bird flying through leaves very very quickly. Then she heard a slight scraping somewhere to her right, and a heavy thud directly behind her. Chiyo jumped up as best she could with her lame foot. She winced a little, settled her weight on her other leg, and paused nervously.  
The part of the forest she was in now was darker, and the trees here grew closer together. There were only a very few birds singing, and there certainly were no flowers. Chiyo couldn't see or hear the stream. She turned around uncertainly. This place gave her the creeps. She wanted to go back to the Disney-worthy flowers and chirping birds scene, snake and all!  
There was a slight rustling noise in the treetops above her, and then there was silence. Chiyo frowned. She stood stalk still and bit her lip as a chill creeped up her spine and the little hairs on the back of her neck stood straight on end. The woods were completely silent now--even those few birds weren't chirping any more. In fact, there was only one sound to be heard, and that was Chiyo's own frightened breathing. Nothing happened for several moments, and Chiyo had just relaxed when she heard large, heavy footsteps coming up behind her, followed by a low, ominous growl.  
Good God, what now!?  
Chiyo bit her lip and very, very slowly turned to face whatever it was that was growling.   
She found herself face to face with a grotesque thing that looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf, with huge glowing orange eyes and black sticky fur from the tip of its huge, wolf-like muzzle to the large bushy end of its tail. The most threatening part was the fact that it stood at least six feet taller than she did....and it was crouched down.  
Chiyo stood, dumbstruck with fear, wishing it were once again a bus she was faced head on with.  
Instead she was staring directly into the gaping jaws and bloodied fangs of some...some....thing in a dark forest all alone. At least with the bus she'd had Maemi with her! What was she going to do? She couldn't fight it! And with her ankle like this, she couldn't outrun it...Chiyo eyed the monster's powerful legs critically. She wasn't even sure she could outrun it in perfect health!  
The beast reared up on its hind legs and stood a terrifying twelve feet tall, roared like a wounded fog horn, and swiped with a bloodied, clawed paw at the frightened girl, who let out a loud, peircing shriek.  
Chiyo was knocked off balance by this sudden attack, and scrambled quickly off the ground, barely feeling the pain in her leg as she shuffled blindly backwards. The creature reached for her again and she brought her arms up over her face, certain her last thought was going to be I'M GONNA DIE!  
Then suddenly, the branches over her head parted and she glanced up in alarm just to see a blur of gold and blue flash past her. Chiyo frowned in confusion and the monster paused and tilted its head, and both girl and fiend found themselves staring quizzically at the young man who was crouched in front of Chiyo with a double-bladed staff before him. The monster roared again and Chiyo shrieked, now not sure which whe was more frightened of; the big, smelly, hairy monster, or the crouched, blade-wielding guy who dropped from a tree in the middle of nowhere. Chiyo decided that if she were in a manga right now, this would be a SD sweatdrop moment.  
"Don't move," He said simply and calmly in a quiet voice that was neither deep nor high.  
The monster decided this new distraction was not satisfactory in the least; in fact, the monster and the young man seemed to know each other to an extent. The hairy thing roared once more, and as it swiped at the two humans, the guy lept up, struck out with his staff and landed once more before Chiyo, scowling grimly at the creature who was now down one long-clawed paw. The once-silent forest was now way too loud with the roaring and screaming of the monster. The guy paused for what seemed like less than a second before he flew back at the thing with a simple back flip and his bladed staff swinging and swishing around so fast Chiyo got dizzy from trying to follow its movement. Suddenly, the monster's severed head came flying at her and she had to leap out of the way to avoid it. It fell to the ground with a dull squishing-thud, and the forest was once again silent. The young man was standing calmly on top of the lifeless body of the monster, looking curiously at Chiyo, who looked nervously back at him.  
The guy jumped down and walked towards her, hitting some sort of mechanism in the staff that caused the bloodied blades to snap back into it, disquising the weapon as a walking stick. The guy was short, maybe a few inches taller than her, with wild, wild blond spiky hair and bright green eyes. He wasn't really handsome, but he wasn't ugly, and he wasn't exactly just average, either. He wasn't thin, but he wasn't fat, nor was he just average. One thing that was definite was that the guy had a big aura of power around him. Chiyo took this to mean he could snap her in half like a twig if he wanted to. She bit her lip once more, wishing again that Maemi was there with her to share this strange, frightening adventure. The wierd strong blond guy with a staff now stood about four feet in front of her.  
"Are you alright?" He asked quietly, still with that almost child-like inquisitive look on his face.  
. Chiyo closed her eyes and fell backwards in a dead faint.  
  
  
  
  
"You're sure you had Chiyo, too?" Maemi cried, sitting with her head buried in her hands on the table before her. Tasuki stood near the wall by the window, and Miaka sat beside Maemi, trying to comfort her. Nuriko lounged on a bench near the door, and Hotohori sat at the head of the small table, hands folded meditativly before him.  
"Yeah, I'm sure! I pushed her outta the way same as I did you!" Tasuki repeated for the eigth time in ten minutes. Maemi felt bad for making him repeat himself so many times, but she just couldn't understand it! Why wasn't Chiyo here? Maemi figured that when Tasuki was getting sucked back into Konan, he'd tackled her to the ground and was half on top of her. And if he hadn't been touching Chiyo and only knocked her over, then she was left in the street with that bus coming and not able to run in time....  
"Oh no, oh no, oh no," she murmured over and over as Miaka reassuringly patted her back.  
"Did you let go of the other girl at any time during your transport?" A new voice asked from the enterance of the door. Maemi looked up just in time to hear the "No Da?" that gave away the speaker's identity.  
One thing Maemi and Chiyo had always agreed on was that Chichiri looked better without his cat mask. Faced with the magical monk in real life, Maemi felt their assumption proved. With the cat face, the gravity defying blue mohawk and the big-beaded necklaces, Chichiri looked...well, he looked....wierd.  
"I think just before we landed, I may have," Tasuki said, frowning in his attempts to recall what had happened during their hectic voyage to Konan.  
"You WHAT!?" Maemi bellowed, clenching the table in front of her with both fists as Hotohori jumped a mile and Miaka grabbed her by the shoulders lest she leap over the table and rip Tasuki's heart out through his ass. Nuriko raised an eyebrow and Tasuki looked very upset.  
"How could you DO THAT! You LOST my BEST FRIEND!" Maemi continued before dropping her head to the table with a thunk of defeat.  
"Chiyo could be anywhere! And she may act tough, but...well, you met her! You know what she's like!"  
Tasuki was leaned against the wall by the window, looked outside and brooded.  
"From what I heard from His Majesty, your friend can take care of herself, No Da!"   
Maemi turned and faced the masked man.  
"But that was different! Chiyo isn't what you all think she is! She's only a little girl on the inside! She wouldn't last a minute out there all alone!" Maemi cried, feeling panicked again. "She could've gotten herself into all sorts of trouble by now! She could be captured by slavers or dead in a ditch, or she could've gotten--we have to find her!"  
"But, Maemi, we have no idea where she is," Miaka said softly. "She could still be in Tokyo, being just as frantic over you as you are over her,"  
"Oh, wonderful! If she's still in Tokyo, that means she got hit by that bus!"  
"How could she get hit by a bus? What were you three doing over there?" Miaka asked with a   
half-confused, half-frightened look on her face.  
"Running from a United States Army captian," Maemi said and Tasuki choked back a rift of laughter.  
Maemi shook her head at Miaka's bewildered face and almost smiled.  
"Are you sure she's somehwere in this world, No Da?" Chichiri asked thoughtfully before Miaka could ask another question, leaning against his staff. Maemi glanced down at her charm bracelet and brushed her fingers over the little yellow tiger. That tiger looked an awful lot like Chiyo's favorite earrings.  
"Yes, I'm sure. She has to be here!" Maemi stated quietly.  
"If you are certain she is here within our world, then perhaps Taiiskun could find your friend,"  
Hotohori said, speaking for the first time and finally resettled after Maemi's violent outburst.  
"Yes! Taiiskun helped me get home once, and she helped me find out about Yui! I'll bet she could help you, too!" Miaka cried, once more becoming chipper and energetic.   
"I know," Maemi sighed off-handedly.  
"How could you know that?" Nuriko, Hotohori and Miaka asked at once.  
"Uh...nevermind," Maemi said in a tiny voice, ducking her head a little. How could she explain? Hey, Miaka! You're a girl from a book that gets sucked into a book, and I've read that book, and now I've gotten sucked into the book in which you get sucked into a book!  
Maemi sighed doubtfully, looking at Miaka. In a lot of ways, Miaka reminded her an awful lot of Chiyo. Except Miaka's joy with life wasn't an act like Chiyo's.  
"But I don't wanna have to trek up a mountian just to find out Chiyo's hurt, dead or worse,"  
Maemi said a bit fearfully. "And besides, scary things give me nightmares,"  
"How did you know Taiiskun is scary?" Miaka asked in a clueless tone that Maemi was beginning to find really, really irritating.  
"I'll tell ya later," Maemi muttered, her patience with the inquisitive younger girl fading fast.  
Suddenly, Hotohori reached over, grabbed her arm, and began studying her wrist.  
"What the---" Maemi started.  
"What is it, Hotohori?" Miaka quickly interrupted, looking over and gasping. "Hey, wow! Neat!"  
Maemi glanced down and realized they were oohing and aawing over her charm bracelet. She snatched her arm back from Hotohori with a glare and slipped the bracelet off, handing it to him to inspect.  
"This bracelet is....most interesting! Where did you get it?" He asked in awe. Now the other inhabitants of the room were crowded around him trying to get a look, all except Tasuki, who merely turned back from the window, still scowling.  
"Chiyo had it made. We each have one. It's...it's a comemorative kinda thing,"  
"Ooh, neat!" Miaka squealed.  
"This is Suzaku, and this is Seiryu, and that's Genbu, and the tiger is Byakku!" Nuriko exclaimed, touching each charm as she said the name for each of the miniature gods.   
"But...but...what is that, No Da?" Chichiri asked, pointing at the last charm.  
Maemi looked up and found her gaze locked with Tasuki's.  
"It's a pizza box," she said simply.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chiyo opened her eyes. It was a bit harder to open her eyes this time than it was before, and her vision was very blurry. She was lying in the clearing next to the brook, or one a lot like it. There were flowers and grass and singing birds and no bloody monsters or strange staff-swinging guys. Chiyo didn't feel like sitting up yet. Her leg still hurt, and her stiffness and soreness had returned ten fold. She sighed.  
She had to admit, though, that staff guy had definitely kicked ass.   
She turned her head to the side and squinted her eyes at the stream. She knew she'd have to sit up, and probably thank that guy for saving her dumb butt, and then maybe try to heal her unbearably painful ankle injury. She sighed again and decided she'd have to quit procastinating.  
Chiyo finally sat up and found herself nearly face to knee with the kick-ass guy's leg.  
She screamed and the young man looked down at her in confusion.  
"You do that an awful lot," He said in that same calm voice.  
"Well, if things would stop scaring me, maybe I wouldn't scream so much!" Chiyo snapped, and immeadiatly felt bad. "I'm sorry. I've had a rough day. Between almost getting hit by a bus, discovering I'm all alone in a different world, having some....some thing try to eat me, and having you jump out of a tree....Look, if there were any hard liquor here, I'd take up drinking," Chiyo finished, burying her face in her hands. The guy was now looking at her like she was crazy. Well, he's probably right. She sighed.  
"Okay, here's the drift. I'm sorry again. My name's Chiyo Matsuko, and I'm not from here, I'm from Tokyo, Japan. I got seperated from my friend, Maemi Haung, and I have no idea where she could be...or where I am, for that matter. Oh, and thanks for keeping that thing from eating me, whatever it was," She rushed on. The guy raised a brow.  
"You're welcome,"  
Chiyo grinned, and put her hand over her badly swollen ankle, felt the slight electric shock and finally saw the goldish glow that meant the relief of no pain. She let out a long, relieved breath and jumped up, wiggling her no-longer swollen ankle and gingerly testing her weight on it.  
The guy looked fascinated, but asked no questions.  
"So, could you possibly show me to the nearest town....uh...sir?"  
The guy nodded and pointed his staff towards a small sand path Chiyo hadn't noticed before.  
"Follow that, and it will take you to Shao Su Lang Village. It's about an hour that way," he finished, motioning the direction with his staff again.  
"Oh, okay! Thanks a lot!" Chiyo turned and started to walk down the path, feeling a little better knowing that civilization wasn't too far off. She hoped there weren't any more of those things lurking about.  
"Oh, and hey! What's your name?" Chiyo called as an after thought, turning to walk backwards.  
"I am called Star`kev," The guy replied so calmly and quietly Chiyo had to strain to pick up his voice.  
"Star`kev? Hey, thanks again, Star`kev!" Chiyo called, waving once more and turning forward again as the blue-robed figure shook his head in a mixture of bewilderment and disbelief.  
  
  
Star`kev sighed. He was pretty sure this Chiyo girl had no idea what she was getting herself into  
going into Shao Su Lang Village alone in a skirt like that. Of course, from the story she'd told him, she didn't have much choice unless she wanted to fend for herself in the woods, and her earlier encounter with the shadow demon showed him how well that would turn out. Besides, she was probably looking for her friend, that Maemi person. Star`kev sighed. Chiyo wasn't going to last very long on her own. He knew the type she was. She was too trusting, to innocent, and too young to protect herslef in a place like this. And if she was from Tokyo...well, that made it even worse. That girl was going to get herself into trouble.   
He sighed again and ran his hand through his hair, debating his options. Even though he'd rather just continue on his way, something was urging him to follow Chiyo and keep an eye on her. He smirked a little to himself as he slipped his staff into the sash across his back and lept up into the nearest tree.  
Besides, he thought to himself as he easily lept from branch to branch. Just because I'm keeping an eye on her doesn't mean she has to know it!  



	3. Trade Off

Chapter 3: Trade Off  
  
Maemi walked along the hallways of the palace, her schoolbag slung over her shoulder.  
It was late, and Chichiri had told her to get some sleep. They were going to Taiiskun's mountain tomorrow to see if she could help them find Chiyo. Maemi sighed. She was far too worried to sleep. If anything had happened to Chiyo while she was here living it up in the palace, she'd never forgive herself. She surveyed the dark, silent hallway again, and her attention was caught by a slight glimmer of light from behind a tapestry she'd thought was purely ornamental, and a very soft sound, like a baby's laughter. Curious, she crept closer, trying her best to be silent. She could hear two voices: one a man's, and one a woman's. Maemi had a brief thought that she shouldn't be spying like this, but she was thankful for anything that got her mind off Chiyo for a moment. She slipped behind the large tapestry, careful not to disturb it, and tiptoed along a very elegant small room, more like a closet, actually. The floors were white marble with a small woven rug, and the walls were a pale blue with paintings of ladies and peacocks in lush gardens and the like. There was no furniture, and the entrance looked as if there had once been a door, but it had been removed. The soft tones of this place were a sharp contrast to the regal red and gold of the rest of the palace. The strangest part, though, was there were no lamps, yet the place was aglow with light. There were also no people. Was the palace haunted? Maemi felt her eyes grow wide, and her heart beat fast. A real live haunted palace! She wished Chiyo were here to share this discovery! There was a soft rift of laughter, and Maemi realized that the ghosts were behind another curtain; this little room was merely an entranceway.   
Suddenly, a tense silence fell over the two rooms, as if the ghosts anticipated being caught. Maemi crept closer and was about to slip behind the curtain when the wall behind her slid open. Maemi heard soft steps approaching, and she spun around, ready to face her shadowy ghost/attacker.  
"M… Maemi?" Hotohori asked, his brows coming together in perplexity as the light fell on him. He had his sword in hand and looked ready to strike.   
"Your… Majesty?" Maemi asked, equally confused. Hotohori looked to be the exact opposite of his usual self. His hair was casually pulled back, he was in his bare feet, and he wore a simple cream robe tied with a brown belt. He quickly re-sheathed his sword and took her arm, leading her into the soft warmth and lamplight of the hidden room. "What are you doing here?" He asked, not angry or annoyed, merely curious. He hit a lever and the wall slid back into place.  
"I was out wandering and I saw some light behind the tapestry. I was curious, and--"  
"Horichan? What is it? Who is that?" A petite young woman asked, perched in a chair by a window which had been bricked and plastered over. A toddler, who was maybe one year old, stood unsteadily on her knees, a huge grin on his adorable face as he gripped his mother's bandaged hands. The woman was amazingly, unbelievably beautiful. Also wearing a simple robe (although hers was fuscia and embroidered with peacocks), her rounded face was delicate and her flawless skin was lightly tanned. Her long, jet-black hair hung in a braid over her shoulder that nearly touched the ground, and her large, almond-shaped, amber-colored eyes regarded Maemi half-curiously, half-suspiciously. Golden earrings hung from her ears, a string of jade beads was around her neck, and a lacy gold comb was tucked into one side of her abundant tresses.  
"It's nothing to worry about, Miyoko-chan. This is Maemi, one of the girls I was telling you about. She was out exploring and stumbled in on us,"  
Maemi couldn't believe what she was hearing. This couldn't be--could it?  
She looked at the little boy again, and realized he did indeed look exactly like Hotohori, right down to his long eyelashes and baby nose. He let out a cheerful bubble of laughter, and Hotohori lifted him, grinning proudly.  
"Y-you're...and that's..." Maemi stuttered, beginning to feel a little faint.  
She'd stumbled in on Miyoko and Kaemon's secret room! She was in the very midst of The Secret Story, her all time favorite Four Gods tale!  
"I know you can keep this little secret," Hotohori said, smiling and cuddling his son a little closer.  
Maemi nodded "yes" rather dumbly.  
"You wouldn't reveal us, would you?" Miyoko asked, looking a bit nervous for a moment.  
"No, no…I'd never… do… that…" Maemi said softly, still in shock.   
Miyoko chuckled and stood, and Maemi realized she was pregnant...again...  
"Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Hotohori said jovially, and Maemi sank numbly into a nearby chair. "I just can't believe it! First The Universe of the Four Gods, now this!" she murmured.  
"Well, from what I've heard, you've had a rough day, Lady Maemi. Almost as rough as mine. Would you like some tea?" Miyoko asked; walking towards a table with a tea service set out as Hotohori sat down with Kaemon on his lap. Maemi absently nodded her assent. "Please...and can you spike it with something?"  
Miyoko and Hotohori were both laughing when a piercing scream shattered the peace of the palace. Miyoko started and dropped her teapot, which shattered into a million pieces on the hard floor. Hotohori leapt to his feet, gently pushing Kaemon into Maemi's arms, grabbing his sword and rushing off.  
"What the--?" Miyoko started, then sighed, shaking her head. "Well, it's good to know some things never change around here. I always know I'm in Hotohori's palace when screams break out at odd hours of the night," she sighed, rolling her eyes heavenward and bending awkwardly to gather the shattered porcelain.  
"Do you think it's serious?" Maemi asked, standing also. "Here, you take Kaemon, let me get that."  
Miyoko nodded and stood, then stopped.  
"How did you know--"?  
"Ag! I give up!" Maemi shrieked, and grabbed her school bag. After rummaging for a few minutes, she pulled out three Fushigi Yuugi mangas and her battered copy of Secret Story. Secret Story was actually a fanfic done by some American chick ages ago, but Maemi and Chiyo had come across the web page during Computer Apps. IV and loved the story. Now they each had a printed copy in matching three-ring binders, and treated it as if it was part of Yu Watase's actual series. Maemi handed the books to Miyoko, who set Kaemon on the bed and sat down to look at them. "This is how I know so much about all you guys," she explained, lovingly smoothing a creased cover.  
"Why--this is about Horichan!" Miyoko cried, leafing through a manga. She wrinkled her nose. "These drawings don't do him justice, though. And what's that little--oh, it's only Miaka. What a twit!" she said, and Maemi giggled, because she'd been thinking the same thing.  
Then she opened the binder. "I can't read this, but--this is about...me?" Miyoko gasped, flipping through the pages and looking at all the pictures. "Good Gods, this is incredible! Are you a sorceress or something?" Miyoko burst into hysterical giggling before Maemi could answer. "Hey, look at Tashi! What a dork! Did you write this yourself?"  
Maemi was just about to try to answer her again when Hotohori rushed back into the room, looking extremely distressed. "Miyoko! Take Kaemon and go to my chambers. Stay there until I come for you. Maemi! Come with me!" His words were so urgent that both Miyoko and Maemi leapt to their feet. Miyoko grabbed her son and rushed off as she was told. Maemi barely had time to grab her books and stuff them in her bag as Hotohori grabbed her upper arm and all but dragged her away.   
"What's going on?" She demanded angrily.  
"It's Tasuki. He's --"  
"TASUKI!? WHAT HAPPENED TO TASUKI!?" Maemi cried, throwing the shocked emperor against a wall and putting a death grip on his throat. Hotohori couldn't really speak to well, so he pointed to an open doorway with the hand that wasn't trying to keep his air supply going. Maemi dropped him and flew into the room. Tasuki lay on the floor, pale and gasping, drenched with sweat. He had a horrible cough and was shivering.  
"Don't go near him, Lady Maemi! It's the plague!" A maidservant called, cowering against a wall.  
"The HELL I won't!" Maemi bellowed furiously, going to her fallen friend and cradling his head off the floor and into her lap.  
"Oh, Tasuki! What's wrong?" she asked, fear gripping her heart in a way it never had before as her eyes filled with tears. She didn't have time to wonder about it now. Tasuki looked up at her with feverish eyes. And Maemi could see the fear in them. "I'm dying, you nut!" He managed to choke out before practically coughing up a lung. Maemi's blue-green eyes grew wide with fear, and then narrowed in determination.  
"The hell you are!" Maemi seethed almost silently, hugging him a little closer. If Maemi could do anything, she could fix things. It had always been a talent-toaster ovens, radios, clocks, curling irons, sticky situations, her moped, Chiyo's roller blades- you name it. Maemi tried to calm herself lest hysteria get the better of her. If she could fix a curling iron, she could fix Tasuki's illness. Maemi took a few more deep breaths and fought off her tears. Then she took charge.  
"You! Put him in a night robe and get him in a bed! You! Yeah, you, hiding in the corner! Boil water! You, get me wet cloths and a bowl of cold water, and you...uh, do something…um, useful!" She ordered like a drill sergeant, barking her last order at Hotohori.  
Maemi found herself once more wishing that Chiyo were here. Chiyo's mom was a nurse, and she'd taught Chiyo everything she knew about medicine. And now Maemi had a new worry. She couldn't just leave Tasuki here like this, but she had to go find Chiyo! Maemi sighed and ran her hand through her hair. Now what the heck was she supposed to do?  
  
  
  
Just as that Star`kev character had said, Chiyo could soon see the outskirts of Shou Su Lang village. She couldn't get rid of the feeling she was being followed, but every time she turned around, no one was there. Each time she shook off the feeling and continued on. There was something familiar about the name of the village, but Chiyo couldn't quite put her finger on it. She sighed and continued on her way, glancing behind her every so often, but still seeing no other signs of life. The village appeared to be abandoned.  
Upon further inspection, Chiyo discovered that though not abandoned, Shou Su Lang was not the fairytale village she'd expected. In fact, the place was a dump. There were crumbing old buildings and quite a few taverns. The only women about appeared to be prostitutes, and the men didn't look all too promising, either. The only decent building in town was a large, well kept mansion-like structure surrounded by a high stone wall. Chiyo rang the bell repeatedly, but all she got in reply was a man's gruff voice telling her the mistress of the house was away. Chiyo sighed. How was she ever going to find Maemi? If only she could get to Eiyo, and to the seishi. Surely they could help…hell; Chiyo would even go to Taiiskun on her hands and knees if she had to. After fifteen carefully measured minutes of feeling sorry for herself near the front gate of the mansion, she sighed, stood, and wandered on her way. It was getting dark. Chiyo had no money, and she did not want to spend the night on the streets of this town!  
"Hello child. Are you lost, pretty one?" A voice asked. Chiyo felt the tiny hairs rise on her neck as she turned slightly to face the man who now stood behind her.  
"N-no, I'm not! I am ah--a messenger from the Imperial City. I've come to give an urgent message to the mistress of this house,"  
"I don't believe you, girl,"  
"Why ever not?" Chiyo quipped back innocently.  
"Because Lady Miyoko left for the Imperial City over a week ago,"  
"Well, she never arrived and I was sent here to find her," Chiyo fibbed without missing a beat.  
"By her husband?"  
Chiyo froze. How should she play this one? How did she know if this Miyoko woman had a husband or not? If she answered yes, and was wrong, things could get…. well, bad, to say the least. The only Miyoko Chiyo could think of was Hotohori's best friend and sort-of lover from Secret Story…even though "nothing" had happened…but this was not the time to think on that!  
"No, good sir. By her brother," Chiyo announced confidently, hoping to sound official.   
The man leaned heavily on his cane and gave her a long studied look.  
"She has no brother,"  
"Yes she does! Lady Keisha Loki does so have a brother!" Chiyo cried, taking a gamble and hoping she was dealing with the same Miyoko...how many could there be in ancient China? "Miyoko" was a Japanese name meaning "beautiful child." Were there even Japanese people in The Universe of the Four Gods? Chiyo had no idea.  
"Who, then?" The man challenged.  
"Lord Tadashi Suki, sir,"  
The man's good eye widened and he stared at her in shock.  
"T-Tadashi Suki!? You've met Tadashi Suki and lived to tell about it!?"  
Well, she was obviously dealing with the right Miyoko….  
Chiyo frowned in confusion. What could be so bad about Tadashi? The boy Miyoko had described may have been a tad antisocial, but jeez, losing your mother and all your friends to a big rock could do that to a person!  
"He could've followed you! He could be angry and vengeful! We're all going to die!" The man cried, hobbling down the street in a blind panic. Chiyo sighed and rolled her eyes. It was now dark, and she had no place to stay. She hopped up on one of the stone lions guarding the gate, sat and crossed her ankles, and put her chin in her hand. If this really were Miyoko's house, someone inside would know when she was getting back! And when she came back, Chiyo was sure she'd help her get to the palace! Also, if she had Miyoko on her side, getting Hotohori's help would be a sure thing!  
Chiyo smiled and congratulated herself. Usually Maemi was the intelligent sleuth-like one, but for once, Chiyo had used her very own brainpower to get out of her own scrape! She leapt off the lion and turned, bowing to the locked gate of the Loki residence. I'm so gonna find Maemi! She thought joyously.  
"You! Cutie pie nitwit bowing to a door!" a new male voice called. Chiyo gritted her teeth as she heard laughter, catcalls and wolf-whistles loom up behind her. She sighed. What was it with this place and delinquents and strange old men!? They were everywhere! Like…like…rabbits or something!  
"Um...messenger from the palace?" She ventured timidly.  
"Um, slavers who don't care?" The man shot back in a mockingly girly voice.  
"Damn," Chiyo cursed as she dropped her hands to her sides. Well, this was it, so much for her brilliant plan. She couldn't run because she was surrounded, and she knew better than to fight. She knew it was a lost cause, but she couldn't help but let out an angry shriek as the leader hoisted her up and slung her roughly over his shoulder.  
Then about a thousand things happened at once.  
First, the locked gate flew open, wood splintering everywhere as it slammed into the stone walls. Then, a blur of black and red sped past her at the same time a different blur of blue and gold dropped from above. Chiyo was dumped unceremoniously to the ground and the wind was knocked out of her. Next, the sounds of a violent fight erupted, and then finally there was a tense silence.  
"Are you alright, Lady Chiyo?" Asked a voice that was neither deep nor high, but not exactly in the middle.  
"S-Star`kev?" Chiyo ventured, looking up.  
"Yes. It's me. You are unhurt?"  
"Yeah, I'm fine," She said, slightly confused. Chiyo finally looked up and beheld an amazing sight.   
Star`kev was indeed there, and suddenly Chiyo realized her "I'm being watched" sense had been right; the solemn beast-slayer had been following her. Chiyo didn't mind that at all. In fact, she was touched by this guy's obvious kindness. The thing that bugged Chiyo was Star`kev stood exactly opposite a different man. This wouldn't have been so bad, except this man had a long silver katana out, and he did not look happy. He was a little taller than Star`kev, and definitely slimmer, almost scrawny, actually. He had smooth black hair that was tied back from his rather handsome face, and sharp black eyes that never wavered from Star'kev for a moment. He wore a simple pants-and-coat outfit all in black with a red sash, and had a black scabbard on a black sash over his back. Chiyo was quick to realize that the only thing keeping this new gentleman's katana from slicing through Star`kev, was the fact that he had whipped his staff up just in the nick of time. The situation did not look good, and Chiyo knew the first to move would probably die. "Star`kev! Be careful!" Chiyo gasped. "Hey! You! Katana-man! Leave Star`kev alone!" She exclaimed angrily, trying to dust off her torn skirt as she awkwardly stood.  
"What do you know about Miyoko?" The man shot back, not even straining, his eyes never leaving Star`kev for an instant; and suddenly it all made sense.  
"You're Tadashi Suki!?" Chiyo gasped in reverent awe, causing the man to start slightly and look sharply at her. This gave Star`kev the opportunity he needed to push his opponent down and away. Unfortunately, Tadashi had recovered quickly from his shock and blocked, causing Star`kev to flip over his head. Chiyo could only make out vague outlines of forms in the dust cloud that followed, but when it eventually cleared, they were back in a similar position as they were before. Only this time, Tadashi had Star`kev pinned to the ground. Chiyo sighed.  
"All right, now cut that out! You two have made your point! Your both big tough manly men, and I'm the weak little girl. Now be civil so we can chat? Please?" She said in a slightly disgusted tone, putting her hands on her hips. Both men stared at her in mild shock, but neither moved.   
"Do I have to drag you off of him!?" She asked. Tadashi gave her a look of mild amusement and slowly stood. Then he reached down, grabbed Star`kev by the wrist, and pulled him easily up. The two men glared at each other a bit, but eventually focused their attention on the short, slightly spazzy blonde before them.  
"What is it with me and the short angry girls?" Tadashi demanded, looking sky-ward before snapping back to a near attention-like pose.  
"Now, what do you know about Miyoko?" She asked.  
"Only that she lives here, and I needed to save my hide!" Chiyo cried defensively.  
"How did you know she lives here!?"   
"Some raspy old servant said she was away when I came to the door,"  
"Are you sure that's the only reason?"  
"As far as I know, which isn't far, Miyoko is off in Eiyo having a hell of a time,"  
Tadashi looked meditative for a moment, then nodded.  
"Good. Okay. Now why are you looking for her?"  
Chiyo sighed. "I'm getting so sick of reciting this…" she muttered.  
"She's from another world and was separated from her friend whom she's very worried about. She feels that if she can get to the Emperor's palace and Priestess of Suzaku, her celestial warriors can help her find her friend," Star`kev filled in quietly.  
"What he said," Chiyo finished, pointing a thumb at Star`kev appreciatively.   
"And you feel Miyoko can help you do this?" Tadashi asked after an unreadable sigh. Chiyo couldn't tell if he was sad, worried, suspicious, or just missing Miyoko a lot.  
"Unless I miss my mark, she has the Emperor…well, in the palm of her hand, to put it bluntly."  
Tadashi kinda glared. "Well, yeah. She does. Why she'd want him in the palm of her hand, I don't know, but-"  
"So do you think she'd help me?" Chiyo interrupted, not wanting to get Tadashi on a Hotohori-bashing spree.   
"Probably. She's in the mood for a good adventure,"   
"Adventure?" Chiyo asked, feeling alarmed. Of course, if the Secret Story was any clue, everything Miyoko did was an adventure. Chiyo sighed.  
"My thoughts exactly. She's in no condition to be out raising hel-"  
"Condition?" Chiyo interrupted again, raising a brow. This time Tadashi broke into a huge grin.  
"Yeah, she's expecting another baby,"  
"Then she's married now?"  
"Unfortunately,"  
Chiyo sighed. Great. All she had going for her was a silent martial artist with a staff and a temperamental warrior-god who hated each other, a pregnant princess with a toddler in tow, and her own torn-skirted self.  
"So you think she'll help?"  
"I don't see why not. So I guess I'll have to take you to that city,"  
"It would be nice,"  
"It's dark. There's no use starting tonight. You two can stay here tonight…I suppose…" Tadashi offered, glaring at Star`kev a bit.  
"Thank you," Chiyo answered, grabbing Star`kev's arm and following Tadashi inside before he changed his mind.  
Chiyo was relieved to discover that there were several servants about. She wasn't sure she wanted to spend the night alone in a house with two violent men she barely knew. After they had eaten and Star`kev had collapsed into sleep on a bed in a guest room, Chiyo crept around the house until she found Tadashi alone in the parlor, staring into the fire.  
"So we're leaving tomorrow?" She asked, knowing full well he knew she was in the room.  
"Sure. Why not?" He replied slightly sarcastically.  
Chiyo decided that it was going to be a challenge to get Tadashi to warm up to her.  
"Do you have anything I can change into?" She asked after a few minutes of silence.  
"Me, personally?" He asked, looking a bit surprised in spite of himself.  
"Yeah, Tadashi, you and all the clothing I'm sure you own,"  
He stuck his tongue out at her and she stuck hers out right back at him. Then he smiled. Actually smiled, not a grin or an evil smile or anything like that. Chiyo took it as a good sign.  
"Yeah, you can have some of Little Girl's clothes. I doubt she'll care or notice, she has so much. Damn royalty always-"  
"That's great! Shall we?" Chiyo cut in again, skipping out of the room.  
Later that night, as she lay in bed in yet another guest room, Chiyo rolled over and stared out the window(which Tadashi had pried open for her). She missed Maemi. It just wasn't the same without having her there to swap insults and jokes with. Maemi would've given Tadashi a verbal battle he'd never forget!  
All in all Chiyo decided she wasn't too bad off. She instinctively knew somehow that Star`kev was a nice guy, and he'd obviously taken her under his wing. It even seemed a bit suspicious that he'd fallen asleep so fast. Tadashi was another story. Chiyo doubted he'd hurt her or anything, but it was obvious he wasn't about to trust Star`kev. She knew that Star`kev wasn't about to leave her with him, ether. So pretty much her biggest problem-next to finding Maemi, that was- was figuring out how to travel without the Klevitz bothers killing each other.   
Speaking of the Klevitz brothers…  
Chiyo slipped out of bed and crept to the door, peeking out. Just as she had suspected, Star`kev was camped out in front of her door, seemingly sound asleep. Chiyo laughed.   
"'Night, Star`kev," she said between giggles.  
"Good night, Lady Chiyo,"  
Then she went to her window.  
"Good Night, Tadashi," she called out.  
"Sleep well," came the reply from just outside. Chiyo laughed again, and drifted off, thinking of the journey that lay ahead, and hoping Maemi was all right.  
  
  
"THEY'RE IN SHOU SU LANG!" Chichiri cried, bursting in the door of the room where Maemi sat at the sleeping Tasuki's bedside. "No da," he added a little more quietly after he caught Maemi's death glare. She motioned him outside silently, then joined him, shutting the door behind her.  
"Now, what did you say? Who's where?"  
"Lady Chiyo, no da. She was seen in Shou Su Lang village. At the Loki residence, with two young men, no da,"  
"Young men? Chiyo's with young men!?" Maemi cried. "What kind of young men? Who are they? Oh, good God! Leave it to Chiyo to get captured by not one, but two guys! This is… this is… HOTOHORI!"  
She yelled, clenching her fists at her side and stomping her foot.  
"She's not captured, no da," Chichiri said a bit sulkily.  
"He's in council right now, Maemi. What is it?" Miyoko asked, coming around the corner with Kaemon asleep on her shoulder.  
"Chichiri found Chiyo in a village called Shou Su Lang in a house with two young men and I need to know where that village is!" Maemi said in a rush, still slightly infuriated.  
"Shou Su Lang? What house? Are the two young men known?" Miyoko asked, looking oddly at Chichiri.  
"Only one for certain. His name is Star`kev, and he is a mage of sorts. No one knows much about him, but he shows up from time to time. The other one…well, there are rumors, no da," Chichiri said a bit uncomfortably, shifting his weight and making his monk's staff jangle.  
"Rumors?" Miyoko asked with a raised eyebrow, undaunted.  
"Well…Lady Miyoko, they say that he's Tadashi Suki, that famous guardian who-"  
Poor Chichiri was interrupted by Maemi's angry squawk and Miyoko's laughter.  
"Of course, it couldn't really be Tadashi Suki, no da," Chichiri added, rubbing Maemi's arm comfortingly.  
"It very well could be!" Miyoko immediately contradicted. "And if it is, our troubles are over,"  
"Why is that?" Chichiri and Maemi asked at once, Chichiri adding a "no da" at the end.  
"Shou Su Lang is my village. If she is with Tashi, she's in my house. As for this Star`kev character, I have no idea what that's all about. But we can leave at once. I'll dispatch a messenger to tell Tashi to keep Lady Chiyo there,"  
"But Tasuki…" Maemi started. "I-we can't just leave him here all alone!"  
"Then put me in a cart and $%^&* take me with you!" Came a weak, pained voice through the door.  
"You heard the man. Let's go," Miyoko said, turning swiftly and heading for what Maemi guessed to be Hotohori's council room.  
"Oh, Gods, this is not good. Not good at all! He shouldn't be traveling! Can't we just have Tadashi bring Chiyo here? This is not good…"  
  
  
  
"How do women function in this stuff!?" Chiyo demanded for about the eighth time, stumbling down the road in her new apparel. Tadashi and Star`kev merely smiled, and then, each noticing that the other was also smiling, glared at each other and turned their heads the other way.  
Chiyo sighed. They had only been on the road for three days. Once they passed a very official looking imperial messenger, but he was rude and Tadashi attempted to kill him, and that was it.  
"Can we stop soon?" She asked for the fifth time.  
"Not yet," Tadashi said calmly, eyes ahead steady. He was pretty handsome in a strange, dangerous way. And charming, too; but mostly when he was trying not to be. Chiyo decided she could have a crush on him if he wasn't so damn irritating. And way too old for her.   
Star'kev wasn't crush material, either. Oh, sure, he was cute in a very mysterious, somber warrior sort of way, but he was so... well, quiet. Chiyo sighed. Just once in her life, she'd love to be in the company of a completely and totally crush-material guy... who was her age and datable, too! But just now she had to find Maemi. Guys could wait forever as far as she was concerned about that. Gods, she hoped that Memi was safe! Maybe she was back at the palace. Maybe she was with Tasuki! Chiyo smiled a bit as she remembered the way he looked at her best friend. And Maemi had always favored Tasuki... maybe a good match was in order! She smiled again. Maemi deserved a guy in her life. There were so many other strange things the girl had to deal with! she deserved at least that much!  
It was starting to get dark, but Chiyo hadn't noticed because she was now so absorbed in thinking of Maemi and Tasuki... mostly of Maemi, though. The lengthening shadows reminded her that her friend could still be out there somewhere, lost, alone, and at the mercy of an unknown and unfriendly world...  
"Lady Chiyo, we're stopping," Star'kev said almost inaudibly.  
Chiyo glanced up and realized the sky was dark. Then she looked around at the grassy fields on either side of the street.   
"Stopping where?" She questioned, confused. There wasn't a tree in sight, let alone an inn!  
And at that exact moment, yet another thousand things all happened at once.  
First, Tadashi gave a loud cry of warning. Next, he slid to the ground clinging to his side and breathing very heavily. Star`kev jumped to action at the first sound of Tadashi's voice, but the attackers were anticipating that and slammed him over the head with what looked an awful lot like a 2x4, and down he went.  
Chiyo stood in the center of the road with her two unconcious escorts lying on either side of her.  
She froze, eyes wide as half a dozen large shapes loomed out of the twilight shadows. Then she shrieked as one of the shapes made a fast move and struck her to the ground, where she landed on her face, hard.  
"Leave her alone!" A very strong, very masculine, very sexy voice said sternly from somehwere in the back. Chiyo tried to focus, but she was too dizzy and loosing conciousness fast. "Never strike a woman," the sexy voice finished a little more gently and she was gathered into strong arms. Then she fainted.  
  
It was daylight when Maemi awoke. She'd been having troubling dreams all night, and most of them included Chiyo and Tasuki, who was lost in a troubled sleep in the back of the cart under a silken tent. His fever wasn't worsening, but it wasn't lifting, either. Tasuki went on in sickness and Maemi's anxiety grew with each passing hour on the road with no sight of the right town. Once they had passed a large group of what looked like suspiciously like bandits, but after some friendly chat, they continued on their seperate ways.   
Miyoko was calm and confident, riding ahead on her little brown mare. Miaka, Chichiri and Nuriko walked on serenely, also, but Maemi sat vigilant by Tasuki's side, bathing his face with cool clothes and making him take sips of tea. What more could she do? She sent up another silent plea to the Gods to spare Tasuki and help her find Chiyo. Chiyo was her only hope right now!  
Maemi dipped her head down into her arms, closed her eyes, and fought off tears for the hundredth time since they'd left Hotohori's palace.  
  
  
"Lady, wake up, now. Open your eyes!" Whispered a very sexy, very gentle voice that was very near to her ear. Chiyo opened her eyes and blinked. She was in a tent, a rough one, with holes in it through which she could see the sky. Her head hurt horribly, and the left side of her face felt swollen and painful. She moaned softly, and then realized she was in someone's arms.  
"Star`kev?" She murmured doubtfully, unsure of whether or not she was really awake. "Tadashi!? She murmured even more doubtfully.  
"No, Lady. Hush. You took a bad fall. Let me tend to this wound,"  
"Fall--" She said softly, then remembered everything. She tried to sit up sharply, but the arms held her back.  
"Star`kev! Tadashi! Where are they! Are they alright?"she cried in a panic, disoriented and confused.  
"Your compainions are fine, don't worry. They have a few bumps and bruises, nothing more."  
Chiyo breathed a sigh of relief, and then began to look around at her new surroundings through one painfully swollen eye and one normal one. She missed Maemi. "Who are you?" Chiyo questioned accusingly, turning to glare at her captor. Then she froze stiff, eyes as wide as possible given her current circumstances. The guy gazed serenely back at her, then stood, leaving her on the small make-shift bed where she sat gazing up at him in reverent awe.  
He was a very tall young man, with blue-black hair to below his elbows and the darkest blue eyes she'd ever seen. They had a seductive tilt to them very much like Tasuki's, but the man was different. Far more serious than her pyromanic aquaintance. He was paler than one would expect a bandit to be, and better dressed, too, in a robe of deep blue silk, black pants and black shoes that laced over snowy-white socks. He wore a black leather glove over one hand, a blue beaded headband around his forehead, and multiple beaded necklaces... and a gold ring in his right eyebrow. Most striking, though, was the faint scar that traced his left cheekbone as if carefully and purposely cut to do so.  
"Are you all right, Lady?"  
"Chiyo... my name is Chiyo. Chiyo Mary Matsuko." She breathed with her heart racing madly. Kidnapped by a hot guy! Chiyo frowned suddenly. Her adventure was beginning to come out more and more like Yui's story. She only hoped Maemi wasn't in the same sort of situation. She had to get to Eiyo!  
"I'm Makoto Askaji," the guy said. "My father is the leader of those theives who attacked you."  
Chiyo frowned. "But we have nothing worth stealing!"  
"So they discovered. Your dark-haired friend nearly killed the man who tried to take his katana."  
Chiyo grinned suddenly, despite herself. At least Tadashi was alright for sure.  
"We are sorry for this inconveinence. If there is anything we can do--"  
"Wait," Chiyo said, holding up a hand for patience. Then she lifted two fingers to gently touch her swollen eye, felt the serge of what felt like electricity, and healed her face. Makoto's eyes grew wide with wonder, but he said nothing.  
"My friends and I need to get to Eiyo, right away. My friend Maemi Haung, she's lost somewhere, and I need to speak to the Emperor so that I can find her. It's very important! Do you have a fast way to get there?"  
"The Emperor?" Makoto repeated with a slight frown in his eyes. "We just passed a group of travelers bearing the Emperor's name. Perhaps they could help you better than a wild band of theiving criminals,"  
Chiyo was about to question his description of his own gang when something in her brain clicked.  
"Travelers? Where were they going? What did they look like?"  
"Yes, travelers. They were going to Shou Su Lang, and they were led by a very small, pregnant woman on a horse,"  
Chiyo's eyes about bulged out of her head and she lept to her feet in excitement.  
"Was the woman amazingly beautiful with unnaturally long, black hair?"  
"Why, yes. Yes she was."  
"THAT WAS MIYOKO!" Chiyo shrieked, startling poor Makoto so badly he leapt backwards, lost his balance, and fell flat on his bum. a shocked look on his face. He did not appear to be accuctomed to surprise.  
"What did the others look like?" She demanded excitedly.  
"A Rather womanly man, a short girl with buns on her head and strange clothes, a man with blue hair and a cat face who was always saying "no da," and another man in a cart with a different girl in strange clothes."  
"Different? Was she blond, like me, and wearing a grey skirt? Was the man a redhead?"  
"Yes and yes,"  
"WAAAAHHHHHOOOO!" Chiyo cried, leaping high into the air. Then she threw her arms around Makoto's neck and kissed him soundly before racing out of the tent.  
"TADASHI! STAR`KEV! I FOUND HER! I FOUND HER! SHE'S OKAY!" She cried, further frightening both the rest of the gang and her compainions witless. Chiyo was too happy to worry about her conduct at the moment. Right now, she had to catch up with Maemi!  
  
  
Makoto glanced at the two men beside him. He didn't trust them any more than they trusted him. He held the reins of the horse that Lady Chiyo rode, a constant grin lighting up her foriegn features in a way that he found very attractive. And now she was singing a song about buttercups and saying that Maemi, her friend, always sang that one. He thought her light, childish voice was rather pretty. In fact, he'd been thinking an awful lot about the odd young woman ever since she'd kissed him. He felt the color creep into his cheeks just thinking about it. Tadashi, her dark-haired guardian, caught the flush and shot him a glare of hatred, which Makoto took without flinching. The light-haired one, Star`kev, was friendly to him, but wary. In fact, the only person who seemed to not be suspecting of him was Chiyo, who wrapped her tust around him like a thick cloak and confused him with words of infinite kindness. No one treated him like that. Not even the members of his father's gang, the only family he knew, who feared him and regaurded him with awe. Makoto had never had any close friends, and he found his attraction to the cheerful, erratic girl somewhat alien. He wasn't sure what to think or say, so he settled for nothing at all. Wasn't that what his father had always told him, after all? Emotion was for the weak.   
  
  
Maemi sighed. Bleak. All was bleak. Tasuki was now on a steady down fall, and Shou Su Lang was more than a day away. Maemi felt numb inside. She couldn't believe it. She was going to loose him! She'd never thought about how much he'd meant to her until now. Even with only the few short days they'd spent together,   
Maemi could not imagine life without him. How would she go on? And what about Miaka and the other Seishi? This was not in the story! It couldn't end like this! Maemi felt her panic rising as she put a fresh, cool cloth over his forehead. His skin was ghostly white and his lips had a bluish tinge to them. His eyelids fluttered a little and he moaned softly, but he did not wake up. How much longer did he have? Probably not long.   
"My poor fangboy..." she murmured, eyes filling with tears.   
"Maemi," he whispered almost inaudibly. His deep brown eyes opened and drifted to her, but she had the feeling he wasn't really seeing her.   
"Tasuki! Oh, Gods, don't die, Tasuki!" She cried, grabbing his hand and pressing it to her cheek.  
"Tasuki, please! I... I l--"  
At just that moment, a terrible noise was heard outside the tent. Maemi flushed scarlet for a moment shocked at what she'd just been about to blab, but recovered quickly. She had to see what was going on. She went to the curtains on the cart and parted them ever-so-slightly. The troupe of bandits was back, and Miaka was jumping about excitedly.  
"Maemi-chan! Maemi-chan, MAEMI-CHAN!" A familiar voice called. Maemi gasped. "CHIYO-CHAN!" she cried.  
The next thing she knew, she was on the road and she and Chiyo were hugging each other, squealing like babies and dancing around in a little circle. "I was so worried about you!" Chiyo cried. When Maemi looked up and saw the tears in her friend's eyes, her strength evaporated, and within minutes she was sobbing and choking out the whole horrible situation on the sympathetic Chiyo's shoulder.  
"I don't know what I can do, but I can try," she vowed seriously, and Maemi was reassured. Chiyo didn't often get that stubborn set to her jaw, but when she did, look out! He bidding would be done come hell or high water!  
And then Chiyo dissapeared into the tent in the cart, leaving Maemi to wait anxiously by the door.  
It seemed like an eternity, but really, it was only a few hours before Chiyo stuck her head back out. Maemi gasped in horror. Her friend was pale and seemed to have lost a good amount of wieght, and there were dark circles below her eyes. She smiled shakily and climbed unsteadily out of the cart, and walked on trembling legs to Maemi, with Tasuki behind her.  
"Tasuki!" Maemi squealed, forgetting all etiquette and leaping into the man's arms.  
"Aw, jeez, nutty girl," he said, but between hugging her back and the emotion choked in his voice, the desired effect of the words were lost. Maemi felt his forehead, and was relieved to find it cool. His eyes were clear, and the smile on his face told her that he was indeed completely well again!  
"Chiyo, you're amazing! You're a Saint! A miracle worker! You are the coolset person alive!" Maemi cried, and while those few expressions may have sounded superficial to some, the bond shared between the two girls conveyed the true feeling behind the words. Chiyo looked exhausted, but grinned none the less.  
"He's all better, Maemi. The fever's gone,"  
"I know! And I'm so relieved, but- Chiyo! What about you? You don't look so good,"   
Maemi's elation shifted back into anxiety in a flash.  
"I'm just tried, I guess," Chiyo said with a brave smile. "I think I must've used up all my energy healing Fang Boy. I just... need... to ..rest..." she murmured before her eyes rolled back and she sank slowly to the ground. Maemi shrieked, and the sound drew everyone's attention. Star`kev and Tadashi, whom she had just met, raced to Chiyo, but one of the bandits got there first, a totally hot guy named Makoto that Chiyo seemed super friendly with.  
He gathered her into his arms before anyone else could touch her, worry clearly etched on his face.  
He lifted a hand to her cheek, and then looked up at Maemi with terror in his eyes.  
"She has a fever!" He said softly. Maemi let out a cry of anguish as she realized what happened. Chiyo had taken the fever from Tasuki's body and housed it in her own! Tasuki held her close and she buried her face in his shoulder. Even stronger than the fear that had gripped her earlier was this. If she lost Chiyo... she should've never asked her to help! But then Tasuki would've died... and she couldn't lose him, either!  
"Is there no end to the drama in this Gods forsaken universe!" She shieked, pushing away from Tasuki and hugging the unconcious Chiyo.  
"I HATE THIS DAMN PLACE!"  
  
  
  



End file.
